The words in my mind are forming in staccato right now so this won't be written like a typical, flowy post. Ulrich Schnauss is an enigmatic German producer who only has a few albums to his name, but the ones he's created are sort of miraculous. His first, Far Away Trains Passing by is a highly repetitive, albeit beautiful, foray into transportative electro. It's a lovely album the first few times, but after that it becomes confined to that one itunes playlist you listen to when you want that sort of unobtrusive ambiance, like when you're studying or writing. However, I'm exceedingly grateful for his first album because if it weren't for that first creative step I would never have had the privilege of discovering, then subsequently devouring, A Strangely Isolated Place, one of my all-time favorites.
Lyric-free, it's an album that flawlessly taps into music's potential to transport your heart and soul to undiscovered territory. It does for laptop electronic music what Debussy's Clair de Lune did for piano solos. It reaches a new pinnacle of beauty for the genre and does so quite effortlessly. It's not an album for every mood, but when you're in just the right state of mind it becomes music at its most sensuous.
9/10
Since the album's release in 2005, Schnauss' career has been on the backburner, but if Pandora radio is any validation for a musician's staying power, just tune to radiohead, sigur ros, boards of canada, mogwai, or any number of electro-savvy bands and you're sure to cross paths with one of his songs.
