Shoegaze for a Laptop Generation: Ulrich Schnauss

by Liz Ohanesian

photo by Jason Evans

When Ulrich Schnauss last played Los Angeles, he fell ill with a bad case of the flu.  His fever spiked, he took some pills and "managed to get through the gig somehow."  In retrospect, Schnauss says that things could have been worse, but it was still a disappointing experience.

"I felt bad about it, though," he remarks, "as there's always been a lot of support for my music in L.A. and I wish I would've been able to play a better gig for the people who came."

Illness aside, the London-based German composer and producer has struck a chord with L.A. residents, where his music has been heavily supported by both Indie 103.1 FM and KCRW 89.9 FM.  During the latter half of the last decade, Schnauss released a large handful of electronic tracks under various aliases, including Ethereal 77 and View to the Future.  Though this output was noteworthy, it wasn't until the release of his first full-length under his given name that Schnauss became something of an indie darling.  On his 2001 debut, Far Away Trains Passing By, the artist created a template for the sound that would follow him through the course of a sonic trilogy that recently culminated with Goodbye, issued by Domino Records in the United States.

"The basic idea for these three albums has been pretty much the same from the start," he explains.  "I wanted to try to merge songwriting in an indie tradition with electronic instrumentation."

Call it shoegaze for a laptop generation.  Schnauss draws on the multi-layered sound championed in its early-'90s heyday by the likes of Chapterhouse, Lush and, of course, My Bloody Valentine while operating as a one-man powerhouse instead of a full band.  With Far Away Trains Passing By, Schnauss introduced the concept, but admittedly did not fully realize his ideas.

"Far Away Trains nowadays just sounds like a rough sketch to me," he says, "only hesitantly hinting at what I wanted to do."

In comparison, the trilogy's second installment, A Strangely Isolated Place was "more advanced" than the first release, but still didn't quite reach Schnauss' expectations.  "I do think it's too repetitive in places," he says of the album, "and was also suffering from some technical limitations."  At the time of the second album, Schnauss lacked a computer capable of recording audio, and so he handled the sequencing aspect with an Atari.

Goodbye is the result of Schnauss' stylistic experiments, an intricately designed piece so large in sound that stubble-raising is inevitable, even when played at moderate levels.  According to Schnauss, the album "manages to erase the previous albums' inadequacies."  The effort is also anticipated to be his last in this style.

Schnauss utilized the same process throughout the three albums.  "You start with a core idea for a song (probably something that appeared through improvising on the piano) and then build layer after layer on top of that basic structure," he explains.  There were a few procedural differences with Goodbye, however.  "For Goodbye, I had a quite precise idea on what kind of sound I wanted to achieve—the individual layers were supposed to merge into each other as far as possible rather than keeping individual sounds distinguishable from each other."

It was a matter of trial and error for Schnauss, which is perhaps the best explanation for the four-year gap between albums, and it wasn't until fall of 2006 that the artist began to feel that his work sounded "right."

That attention to detail is readily apparent throughout the course of the album and should translate nicely into his live performance.  Schnauss has spent the past few months splitting his work into "lots of small loops" that will be reconstructed on stage in the hopes of creating a sound that is similar to the album but, at the same time, "leaves enough room for changes to keep things interesting."

Additionally, a total of 11 different artists will be accompanying Schnauss throughout the course of the tour.  Amongst the group of like-minded musicians are Mahogany, Asobi Seksu and the High Violets.  For his Los Angeles engagement, Schnauss will be joined by Danish artist Manual and California-based band the Fleeting Joys.  Schnauss states that his choice of support acts was inspired by his last U.S. tour.

"During my last American tour, it was quite an overwhelming experience to meet a lot of bands and musicians who grew up listening to a similar style of music and are also trying to do something new and interesting using those influences," he says.  "It seemed like a logical step to try to play with as many friends and like-minded people as possible throughout this tour."

With melodies that play like sidelong glances across lonely planes, which are then augmented by layers of electronic warmth, Schnauss' music is a natural progression of a sound that may have had its critical and commercial peak in 1991, but remains treasured by music fans worldwide.

Ulrich Schnauss plays the Troubadour on October 5.