Pioneering German electronic musician Klaus Schulze has died at age 74. Schulze was a member of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Temple and also released an incredible collection of solo albums that influenced the emergence of ambient music, new age, and EDM. From The Guardian:
Schulze was born in Berlin in 1947, and played a variety of instruments in a variety of local bands, eventually settling as drummer for Tangerine Dream in 1969. Led by Edgar Froese, Schulze played on their debut album, but soon left to form another group, Ash Ra Tempel, with guitarist Manuel Gottsching and bassist Hartmut Enke. This partnership also only lasted one album – their 1971 self-titled debut – before Schulze left to begin a solo career, though he briefly rejoined the band in the 1970s and 2000s[…]
Key [solo] releases include Timewind (1975), which used an early sequencer to create hypnotic repeating patterns – later a key building block of dance music – and 1979's Dune, inspired by the Frank Herbert sci-fi novel. His fascination with Dune continued well into later life: he collaborated with Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack to Denis Villeneuve's Oscar-winning 2021 film adaptation, and Schulze's final album, Deus Arrakis, was also inspired by Dune – it is due for release in June.
