»Subversive«, »experimental« or even »free-spirited« are just some of the words that are essential when describing Conrad Schnitzler’s music. This character is also preserved in symbiosis with Wolfgang Seidel’s alias Wolf Sequenza’s influences. The album »Consequenz II«, originally released in 1986, turns out to be quite a good listen from the first to the last second and does not just serve as a mere historic document as a re-release on Bureau B. Okay, although tracks like the hypernervous »Hommage á Gaudi« with its plastic synth clicks and atonal interjections do sometimes put your patience to the test, »Erotik« alone rewards you in full for your patience: one of the earliest breakbeats that sounds like a mixture of Autechre and Kraftwerk, with a timeless funk guitar above it still radiating sex as resistance, just like it must have for Conrad Schnitzler and Wolfgang Seidel back then. »Windmill«, which like most of the pieces is no longer than three minutes, seems like a degenerate jam that anticipates nineties techno with its iridescent synths. On »Alhambra«, the machine does the heavy lifting again, this time in an obscurely exotic sense. »España« is made up of echoing Spanish samples that enter into a dialogue with choking and throat-clearing – a number that is more likely to serve as a historic document than as listening stimulus. The album with heavy Iberian emphasis closes with the 19-minute-long »Kastilien«, which initially layers one ominous soundscape on top of the other, and later plays around with silence and then lapses into a humorous trot towards the end.
Conrad Schnitzler
Blau
Bureau B