Ulrich Schnauss: Missing Deadlines - Selected Remixes (Rocket Girl)

These are ephemeral twilight till dawn sound constructions flowing down River Melancholy. These are remix highlights of German born Ulrich Schnauss, for the first time collated on this Rocket Girl (powered by Spacemen 3) release. Schnauss is known for his atmospheric synth outings that combine the spirits of shoegaze, krautrock and dreamy electronica: On the one hand he is inspired by Chapterhouse and My Bloody Valentine, on the other you have Tangerine Dream, the Orb and 808 State. He stretches these influences out and fuses them back together with contemporary music to create amorphous agitated ambient tracks littered with jagged beats.

Schnauss: You may have heard of him from his keyboard contributions as part of the Engineers and Longview, or you may have noticed his production talents at work with Kirsty Hawkshaw (of ‘It’s A Fine Day’ fame) and Exit Calm. Even if his CV doesn’t sound familiar his work may have infiltrated your consciousness through the medium of car adverts or computer games. Maybe you heard about 2 of his past record labels suing Guns N’ Roses for alleged copyright infringement? Hmmm.

Anyway, here is the sound of a producer/musician accomplished in his original brief of creating otherworldly headphone music. And it opens with, former Bella Union belles, Howling Bells’ reworked ‘Setting Sun’ that slowly dissolves into ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’ by ‘A Sunny Day in Glasgow’, full of backwards reverb and Linda Lamb like vocals. And just in case you thought the carrier bag sunshine sparkle of shoegaze was well over, there are artists cloaked within this collection that show this is not the case. For instance, there are new gazers Asobi Seksu, off of One Little Indian, presenting their reworked ‘Strawberries’ single, along with a made over ‘Coastline’ from Rachel Goswell, singer from seminal shoegazers Slowdive. Yep, old and new they are all present and still drifting.

This is a collection of tracks that are worth exploring and dreaming to. In Schnauss’ own words “ the original songs are already great in their own right -  which made it really inspiring to work with them”. And it shows.