Ulrich Schnauss

Ulrich Schnauss (b. 1977) is a German musician, producer and remixer. He is known for his ethereal and emotional style of electronic music which owes a heavy debt to the shoegazing sound of the late 1980s, a genre some refer to as indietronica.

Biography

^* Ulrich Schnauss was born in northern Germany fishing port Kiel in 1977, during his formative years he grew a love for a broad spectrum of music ranging from My Bloody Valentine to Tangerine Dream, Chapterhouse to early bleep & breakbeat tracks. There was not much opportunity to see some of his musical heroes in Kiel, so the inevitable pull of the big city meant a move to Berlin in 1996.

By that time Ulrich's musical output had already become prolific with a variety of pseudonyms (most notably View to the Future and Ethereal 77) veering from ambient to drum and bass via electronica. These earlier works were soon catching the eye of Berlin electronica label CCO (City Centre Offices) who took up the story.

"It came a bit of a regular thing, those anonymous packages sent to us from Berlin with a single CDR, a biro scrawl revealing at closer inspection the simple stamp 'Ethereal 77'. Ulrich had been making music for years, producing, touring, piecing together that BIG sound. And yet each of these CDR instalments revealed something a little more personal."

Soon these submissions to CCO developed into Ulrich’s first album under his own name entitled Far Away Trains Passing By which as it slowly seeped into people's consciousness became an electronic classic. Listeners were taken with the lush instrumentation and the emotion of the elegant, simple and beautiful music.

Yet nothing was to prepare his growing army of supporters for this next record A Strangely Isolated Place which slowly came together during 2003 into a record that really showed some of Ulrich's youthful indie influences. His debut album under his real name established his pedigree as an outstanding electronic composer, but somehow he managed to take it further by developing his interest in songwriting for electronic music, born of his love for such giants of the independent world as My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie. From this humble conception, comes forth a record of surprisingly rare emotional power.

A Strangely Isolated Place has become one of those extraordinary and rare occurrences; a genuinely word-of-mouth record slowly growing in stature by virtue of its over-riding ability to deliver more than the usual arid and academic treatises on the state of the synthesizer, or solipsistic bedsit meanderings.

"When you've worked with computers and keyboards for a number of years, they become not so fascinating of themselves anymore. I gained in confidence after people began to discover Far Away Trains Passing By, and it hasn't really stopped since then. This time I decided not to compromise on what I wanted to do, with what I thought people might want me to do."

The results are an oddly retro-futurist record, which owes more to MBV's Loveless or Vangelis's Blade Runner soundtrack than Ulrich's computer peers.

Since the release of both albums Ulrich has been asked to work with and remix a host of artists including: Mojave 3, Longview, Johannes Schmoelling, The Zephyrs, Lunz (Rodelius) etc.

He is currently writing and recording his third album.

(from ^* 2004-11-23 with permission)

Pseudonyms and groups

Ulrich Schnauss
Ethereal 77
View to the Future
Hexaquart
Police in Cars with Headphones
Hair (with Alex Krueger)

Discography

Releases

View to the Future - Broken
- Label: White Label
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1995
Police in Cars With Headphones - Wegwerfgesellschaft
- Label: FSP
- Format: CD album
- Year: 1995
View to the Future - Journey to the Other World
- Label: VTTF
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1996
View to the Future - Purity
- Label: Alphakid Recordings
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1997
View to the Future - Music Is Music
- Label: Airdrops
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1997
Hair (With Alex Krueger) - We Rule the 80s
- Label: Müller
- Format: 12" EP
- Year: 1997
View to the Future - The 7th Seal
- Label: Alphakid Recordings
- Format: CD album
- Year: 1997
View to the Future - Unicorn
- Label: Case Invaders
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1998
Hair (With Alex Krueger) - Hair 2
- Label: USM
- Format: 12" EP
- Year: 1998
Ethereal 77 - Spring Rmx
- Label: Base Daddy
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 1999
Ethereal 77 - Landscapes
- Label: Base Daddy
- Format: CD album
- Year: 1999
Junkie Sartre Vs Hexaquart - Ignorance
- Label: Force Tracks
- Format: 12" EP
- Year: 2000
Hexaquart - Exploitation
- Label: Lifetime
- Format: 12" EP
- Year: 2001
Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By
- Label: City Centre Offices
- Format: CD / LP
- Year: 2001
Ethereal 77 - Zero Gravity
- Label: Looking Good
- Format: 12" single
- Year: 2002
Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
- Label: City Centre Offices
- Format: CD / 2xLP
- Year: 2003

Remixes

as Ulrich Schnauss
- Johannes Schmoelling - Icewalk (Viktoriapark - Collaboration With Robert Wässer)
- Hrk - Love World (Joint Records)
- Obscure Celebrities - Fahreinheit (Gooom Disques)
- I'm Not A Gun - Make Sense & Loose (City Centre Offices)
- Justin Robertson - Love Movement (Bugged Out)
- Mojave3 - Bluebird of Happiness (4ad)
- Longview - Can't Explain (14th Floor Rec)
- Longview - Will You Wait Here (14th Floor Rec)
- Pete Lawrence - Musical Box (Big Chill)
- Sia - Breathe Me (Go Beat)
- Depeche Mode - Little 15 (Reprise/Mute)
- The Zephyrs - Stand Round Hold Hands (Club Ac30)
as View to the Future
- Korsakow & Nudge (Usm)
as Hexaquart
- Daniel Lodig - Connect (Müller)
- Beroshima - Electronic Discussion (Müller)

Compilation appearances (exclusive tracks only)

Police in Cars With Headphones - "Bitte Lächeln - Wenn Sie Wollen," on Artgenda 96
View to the Future - "Addicted to Your Smile," on Barcode
Tinkabell - "Rosarotes Meer," on Chillin' Voices 2 (Shift Music - Collaboration With K. Hein)
Ethereal 77 - "Forever," on Schöne Neue Welt (Space Teddy)
Ethereal 77 - "Oblivion & - Open Skiez," on Unpleasant Poems (Ground Liftaz)
Ulrich Schnauss - "Nothing Happens in June," on Mashed Mellow Grooves 5
Ulrich Schnauss - "You Were the Only One Around," on The Sound of the Cosmos (Hooj Choons)
Ulrich Schnauss - "Crazy For You & - Wherever You Are," on Blue Skied An' Clear (Morr Music)
Ulrich Schnauss - "As If You've Never Been Away," on The Trip (Universal)