1970s In 1969, Schulze was the drummer of one of the early incarnations of
Tangerine Dream – one of the most famous bands that got the nickname "Krautrock" in English speaking countries (others included
Kraftwerk and
Popol Vuh) – for their debut album
Electronic Meditation. Before 1969 he was a drummer in a band called Psy Free. He met
Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream in the
Zodiac Club in what was then
West Berlin. His follow-up album,
Cyborg, was similar but added the
EMS VCS 3 synthesizer. Since this point, Schulze's career was the most prolific, such that he could claim more than 40 original albums to his name since
Irrlicht. Highlights of these include 1975's
Timewind, 1976's
Moondawn (his first album to feature the
Moog synthesizer), 1979's
Dune, and 1995's double-album
In Blue (which featured one long track called "Return to the Tempel" with electric guitar contributions from his friend Manuel Göttsching of Ash Ra Tempel). In 1976, he was drafted by Japanese percussionist and composer
Stomu Yamashta to join his short-lived "supergroup"
Go, Throughout the 1970s he followed closely in the footsteps of Tangerine Dream, albeit with far lighter sequencer lines and a more reflective, dreamy sheen, not unlike the
ambient music of his contemporary
Brian Eno. Some of his lighter albums are appreciated by
new-age music fans, despite the fact that Schulze has always denied connections to this genre. By mid-decade, with the release of
Timewind and
Moondawn, his style transformed from
Krautrock to
Berlin School. Schulze had a more organic sound than other electronic artists of the time. Often he would throw in decidedly non-electronic sounds, such as acoustic guitar and a male operatic voice in
Blackdance, or a cello in
Dune (1979) and
Trancefer. Schulze developed a
Minimoog patch that sounds uncannily like an electric guitar. Schulze often takes German events as a starting point for his compositions, a notable example being on his 1978 album
"X" (the title signifying it was his tenth album), subtitled "Six Musical Biographies", a reference to such notables as
Ludwig II of Bavaria,
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Georg Trakl, and
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. His use of the pseudonym
Richard Wahnfried is indicative of his interest in
Richard Wagner, a clear influence on some albums like the aforementioned
Timewind. Schulze built a record studio in
Hambühren, Germany. This newer style can also be found in Schulze's next release
Audentity. Both "Cellistica" and "Spielglocken" are composed in a similar sequencer-based style as on
Trancefer, but this is certainly not the case of all of
Audentitys tracks; indeed, "Sebastian im Traum" hints towards the operatic style to be found in some of Schulze's much later works. The predominance of sequencing can also be found in the follow-up live album ''
Dziękuję Poland Live '83, although many of its tracks are re-workings of those to be found on Audentity''. Schulze's next studio-based album was
Angst (soundtrack to the
namesake 1983 film). The cold yet haunting electronic rhythms generate an alienated atmosphere. Typical are the Fairlight synth and Linn electronic drums sounds. Another highlight of this era was
En=Trance with the dreamy cut "FM Delight". The album
Miditerranean Pads marked the beginning of very complex percussion arrangements that continued through the next two decades. In 1989, German band
Alphaville released their album
The Breathtaking Blue, on which Klaus Schulze was both a contributing musician and the album's producer.
1990s Starting with
Beyond Recall, the first half of the 1990s was his "sample" period, when Schulze used a wide variety of prerecorded sounds such as screeching birds and sensuous female moans in his studio albums and live performances. Sampling heavily died down with his 1995 album
In Blue.
2010s Big in Japan: Live in Tokyo 2010 was Schulze's fortieth album, and its release in September 2010 marked the beginning of his fifth decade as a solo musician. The Japan concerts were to be his last live performances. His next album,
Shadowlands, was released in February 2013, quickly to be followed by the release of
The Schulze–Schickert Session 1975, a rare long-unreleased collaboration, in March 2013. After a hiatus of several years, he returned to the studio in 2018 for another album,
Silhouettes. Much of the album was recorded in a single
take. ==Death==