As we all know, Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook’s The Dark Side Of The Moog albums tend to fetch a pretty penny. Lucky, then, that they’re being reissued in reasonably priced boxes. The first (volumes 1-4) is out now, the second to come next month. The first box also includes The Evolution Of The Dark Side Of The Moog.
Lovely, floatation-tank music and a good investment into the bargain, if you ask me.
Poppy,
Thank you for the heads up – they both look excellent sets.
I shall now dig out my Namlook Spring and Summer CDs, together with his Ambient Collections for later…
…”turn off your mind, relax and float down stream” indeed!
Excellent work, Poppy.
I have 3, 4, 5 & 7 as hooky downloads. I can now legitimately complete the set and for substantially less than a king’s ransom.
Yesss!
I love the Dreamfish work Namlook did with Mixmaster Morris – should I check this out?
You should — it’s more analogue, possibly *slightly* more eventful than Dreamfish, but very much in the same ballpark.
Thanks, Poppy!
Great stuff – this box has been on the office stereo for the last two weeks.
And the next one’s out in Germany next week!
Was stupidly unaware of this – thank you.
…and Box No. 3 following in early April.
A certain Amazon delivery arrived this morning.
“Wish You Were There Parts I-X” currently playing.
Hello Poppy,
We have received new release date information related to the order you placed on March 06 2016.
The items listed below will actually be dispatched sooner than we had originally expected based on the new release date:
Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook “The Dark Side Of The Moog Vol. 5-8”
Previous estimated arrival date: April 22 2016
New estimated arrival date: March 19 2016
Hurrah!!
Can’t decide whether I want this or not. I like the idea of floatation tank music, but hardly anyone seems to do it well. I gave it a couple of ‘background’ listens on Spotify, and first impressions are that it’s typical Schulze doing his two chord moog snooze thing. It wasn’t until CD 5 (the evolution of ..) that things got more interesting. I’d disagree with Poppy and say that there’s far more going on in Namlook’s Dreamfish. Serious question: there’s thousands of albums of droney synth stuff out there – boomkat depends on them. To those that like it, what marks this particular release out as special?
Hello? Is there anybody in there?
Nobody want to try and convince me why I need this in my collection?
It’s an interesting question. I like this kind of music (“flotation tank”) very much, very occasionally. Wish I had a flotation tank. It would be impossible to say what makes any of these discs stand out in the genre – by their very nature, they lack the particular events and themes and whatever that allow us to make distinctions between, say, Dylan albums. It’s just a case of what works at that particular time, and it doesn’t much matter who’s creating the sounds. So no, you don’t need the music in your collection. But it’s nice to have just in case it works for you once or twice. Whether that’s worth paying real money for is another issue entirely.
Thanks HP. I think you’re articulating the point I was trying to make very well. In the world of ambient and drone music, how does one differentiate between albums that are essentially the same? Giving your album a nifty title like Dark Side of the Moog is a good start. Modern, but with a nice retro feel. Must be good, right?
I was intrigued by this release because I’m familiar with some of Klaus Schulze’s 70s stuff, and had also heard Namlook’s Dreamfish and enjoyed it a lot. Schulze solo doesn’t really do it for me. I find his music cold, oppressive and monotonous. And he’s far too prolific for his own good. How many endless wintry moogscapes does one need in their life? Namlook’s presence on these Dark Side releases adds some much needed variety, but not enough to really convince me.
I want to get this because I’m still searching for that ideal in floatation tank music. But I won’t listen to it because, ultimately, it seems to fall short of the ideal. I’m more likely to stick on something a bit more mainstream like Oldfield’s Songs of Distant Earth or something.
Nobody needs anything like this, but there are times when only floaty space music will do for me. I don’t really care what it is or who made it, so long as it has interesting sounds, goes nowhere in particular, and makes me go to sleep.
I’d never heard of this set before. It’s been on non-stop rotation ever since. I cannot remember a single note of it, but have enjoyed it all the same.
Space music like this is probably the least meaningful music out there, so it’s very difficult to find anything to say about it. It just IS.
You just said some interesting things about it, all of which I agree with.