Klaus Schulze was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician. Known as a member of the Krautrock bands Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and the Cosmic Jokers before launching a solo career consisting of more than 40 original albums released across six decades.

In the late sixties, Schulze became the drummer of one of the early incarnations of Tangerine Dream - one of the most famous bands that got the nickname “Krautrock'' in English speaking countries (others included Kraftwerk and Popul Vuh). He met Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream in the Zodiac club in what was then West Berlin. A few years later, he left the group to form Ash Ra Tempel together with Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke. Only a year later, he left again to start going solo. Only two years later, Schulze released his debut album Irrlicht with an organ and a recording of an orchestra filtered almost beyond recognisition. Despite the lack of synthesizers, this proto-ambient work is regarded as a milestone in electronic music. He ended up making more than 40 original albums.

In the 1980s Schulze started using digital instruments besides the usual analog synthesizers, and his work accordingly became less experimental and more accessible. Although the switch to using digital equipment is audible in the style of his album Dig It, it was not until the release of Trancefer hat the shift in style became evident.

The first half of the 1990s was his "sample" period, when Schulze used a wide variety of pre-recorded sounds such as screeching birds and sensuous female moans in his studio albums and live performances. After this period,he began re-releasing his classic solo and Wahnfried albums with bonus tracks of unreleased material recorded at roughly the same time as the original works.

Klaus Schulze died on 26 April 2022 following a long illness.

Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht (1972)

source: wikipedia