Conrad Schnitzler - Con 1978, aka Ballet Statique 2014 - I'm not finding it anywhere, but this had to be, at least in part, responsible for techno. I know how haphazardly krautrock, and early electronics, are labeled as proto music of various styles and genres, but this has to be in the technosphere somewhere? Admittedly, I know little about techno, so maybe that's why I'm not finding any chatter about the connection. And don't let that dissuade you from giving this album a shot. It's not techno. But I didn't listen to this because of any of that. The Red Cassette was released in 1973, the same year as his classic first album Rot, and other than a tape reissue in 2015, this particular edition of Con/Ballet Statique is the only way to get it. To make it more complicated, it didn't actually come on the CD. You got a code to download it (it's common now, but I'm not sure how common it was in 2014). Buying the CD gave you access to the Red Cassette if you wanted it. Red Cassette is two 30-minute tracks of minimalism and repetition. When you downloaded it, you got those two tracks and another track with one side in the left channel and the other side in the right channel. It's weird that this tape has never been reissued on CD, or even some bad edit on vinyl, but then for it to be accompanied with the tracks combined like that? I don't know if Schnitzler just doesn't like it or what. This guy is prolific and doesn't have the greatest of batting averages, but when he was on, he was ON. He's fascinating. Every time I listen to the tape, I end up writing some nonsense like this about it. It's a mindbender.
* "Zug" from Con is a variation on the first track on Red Cassette
**by prolific, he had a private series of nearly 900 CDRs and/or cassettes (only available from him). I don't know if he dedicated himself, as a challenge, to sit down every day to record something or what. Whatever the exercise, was it self-imposed challenge? Was it purely an experiment? Was it to give himself something to sell to pay the bills and nothing more? I have no idea about the motivation or why he did this. I've heard tens of these, and not one of them was all that great. Nonetheless, they do give insight into an artistic mind. They are interesting insofar as following along with an artist doing their thing.
*** I was wrong above. I forgot about the album titled Zug, which was an edited version of Red Cassette to fit onto a picture disc LP. "Zug" the track, from Con (Ballet Statique) is still another matter. So, there's an album called Zug and a track called "Zug", which is Train when translated from German, and if you listen to this track, you know exactly why it is titled that.