The Dark Side of the Moog - Volume 5-8

We write the year 1994.
Klaus Schulze could already look back on a long, successful career at this time. At this time, his "digital phase", the fascination for the then still new sample technology with albums such as "Beyond Recall", his concerts in the Royal Festival Hall, in the Cologne Cathedral or even with his opera "Dead Day" had reached its zenith.
Peter Kuhlman a.k.a Pete Namlook, on the other hand, was just at the beginning of his career.
His label Fax founded in 1992 was a play and playground for his own visions in the coming years, but also for exciting encounters and collaborations, including Robert Görl (DAF), Geir Jenssen (Biosphere), Bill Laswell, Richie Hawtin, Lorenzo Montanà, Gabriel. Le Mar, Dr. Atmo or David Moufang.
In a 2002 interview, Pete Namlook recalls:
"The initial ignition to the whole was indeed 'Air II'. The Space-Music part of the piece 'Travelling Without Moving' got Klaus so excited that he wanted to work with me immediately. It was the music that was important to him. Although he had already rejected a collaboration in principle, I was able to convince him with my music. That was the key to the collaboration. This piece was designed more for the Schulze/Tangerine Dream art of analogue synthi bass sequences and thus it was clear that we would also work primarily with the analogue means.
Klaus was not so easy to win. But the musical result convinced him. I didn't want a remake of 70s space music, but merge it with the beats and sounds of today's electronic music. And I believe that has succeeded with 'The Dark Side Of The Moog' too."
Klaus Schulze: "The whole series was a very unpretentious project. Since I always have full artistic control with my albums, I deliberately and gladly gave them out of hand and could make compromises. For me it was interesting because otherwise I hardly work with other electronic musicians. It was also a totally different chemistry than e.g. with Manuel Göttsching, with which I understand myself musically blind. Seen that way, it was also a challenge. I could never work with anyone who is the same as me. Then I prefer to do it myself. The few I otherwise worked with, such as Rainer Bloss, for example, also had to have a strong ego so as not to let me underbutter. Namlook told me that my music was often too emotional for him. Namlook is much more rational, so I jokingly called him 'the Banker' - but this opposite aspect has made it interesting. I need people who work contrarily. The work on 'The Dark Side Of The Moog' initially began without firm intention and was not planned as a series either. And so that it doesn't just sound like Schulze, I wanted Namlook to mix it."
The influence of Pete Namlook on the entire work of Klaus Schulze in the mid-90s must not be underestimated because he loved precisely those elements that were less present in his own music. So Namlook encouraged Schulze to return to the analog charm of his earlier albums, assisted him in the midification of his analog instruments, ultimately leading to the epochal 1996 Schulze album "Are You Sequenzed?" Lead.
Pete Namlook's understanding of Klaus Schulze's music, but also his own understanding of music made the work for Klaus Schulze exciting. For Pete Namlook, Schulze's curiosity and work at eye level was one of the driving springs:
More or less unplanned, "The Dark Side Of The Moog" grew into a stately eleven part series between 1994 and 2008, ended alone by the far too early, tragic death of Pete Namlook on November 8, 2012.
Even in the retrospective, it is incredibly exciting to experience the approach, the exchange, the growing together - but also the fertilizing frictions.