Out on August 7th, 2020. Available at https://shop.tapeterecords.com/new/conrad-schnitzler-frank-bretschneider-construct.html

About the Con-Struct series
Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=min- imal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler al- bums at the outset of the 2010 decade, label honcho Jens Strüver was granted access to this audio library.
Strüver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album, he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler’s unique world of sound.

Bretschneider on his Con-Structions
I read the name Conrad Schnitzler for the first time in the arti- cle about Tangerine Dream in the Rowohlt Rock Lexicon from 1973 (back then, at 17 in the GDR, an indispensable guide). The first time I heard his music was only in 1980, when his wave track “Auf dem Schwarzen Kanal” was played on the ra- dio, an RCA 12“ Super Sound Single in disco remix. Then the man was gone and stayed under the radar again, in spite of his almost inflationary number of releases. Maybe his mate- rial was too obscure or his approach too radical to be noticed by the general public. It wasn‘t until 1988 that I heard from Schnitzler again, a tape on Jörg Thomasius‘ East Berlin Kröten Kassetten label. And again almost 10 years later his Plate Lunch CDs “Rot” and “00/106”. But it was all too rough and raw for me, both in terms of sound and organization, kind of mechanically and not really cool. Only after I heard Wolfgang Seidel at the NBI around 2002 with one of his tape concerts, I came slowly closer.
Schnitzler‘s early role as co-founder of two influential bands is one reason for the ongoing reception. Another is his con- sequence as an artist. “I‘m not interested in having publicity or a public feedback” he declared in an 1996 interview. It remains an open question whether one has to completely refuse to do so. But I was always fascinated by this almost extinct way of being an artist in its full independence. Just as I feel connected, as a self- taught person and as someone who prefers to look forward instead of looking back: “I don‘t want nostalgia.” After all it was Jens Strüver who inspired me to work with Conrad Schnitzer‘s material.
I had the idea of flowing music in which patterns develop, shift, dissolve and finally reorganize. A modular system seemed the most suitable to connect Schnitzler‘s world with my own by triggering and modulating his sounds via a sampling module and supplementing them with my own. Perhaps I have not always succeeded in merging both worlds congenially, sometimes they orbit, sometimes they collide, but they never stand still. As Conrad Schnitzler says in his „Context“ manifesto: “The sounds don‘t come to stay.”

Buy CD/LP

BB349 Conrad Schnitzler & Frank Bretschneider – Con-Struct (Album Preview)

A sound artist and archivist, making immersive psychogeographical spatial compositions with electronics, code, analogue synthesisers, and field recordings. I primarily explore sound ecology and spatialisation, addressing themes such as the agency of non-organic others, non-human animal languages, and listening to the inaudible. A member of the Jata C group for bioacoustics and sound ecologies, the Clockwork Voltage community, and the CENSE Network. Publishing with Kamizdat label.

en silencio y sin apuro como el fotón que mira con ojos cerrados y discierne con el corazón!!


Inquiries: ✉ info@bureau-b.com ✉

Bureau B is a Hamburg based label which releases past and future classics unearthed from genres including (but not limited to) electronica, avant-garde, Kraut(rock) – a colourful spectrum of diverse, yet contigiuous musical genres. Applying the expertise deployed in trawling the archives, Bureau B has gone on to champion new and contemporary acts with similar musical sensibilities to their pioneering antecedents.

I'm Max and this is my psygressive project started in 2013.