Vanity Of Sounds

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Vanity of Sounds was originally released in 2000, as disc one of the ten-CD box set Contemporary Works I. SPV's Revisited subsidiary gave it its first single release in 2005, early in its career-encompassing reissue program of Klaus Schulze's discography. The album consists in four long pieces (between 15 and 23 minutes each). Compared to the four-volume Ballett series (also taken from the Contemporary Works I box set), the music here is more consistent and closer to Schulze's long-established sound -- no Arabic influences here, no techno episodes. In fact, Vanity of Sounds marks a return to an earlier sound, closer to Dreams and Miditerranean Pads, or even Dig It. The pieces are long and slow-evolving as usual, and sequenced as if forming four movements of a single continuous 78-minute work, an impression strengthened by the reappearance of sounds or figures from one track to another (for instance, the Gregorian chant embedded in "Sacred Romance" briefly resurfaces at the end of "The Wings of Strings"; the vocoder voice providing the backbone of "From Words to Silence" had been glimpsed in "Vanity of Sounds"). "Vanity of Sounds" and "The Wings of Strings" are the best tracks from this set, the first one a typical Schulze workout, the other a slightly edgier piece. "Sacred Romance" milks its motive and Gregorian mood dry rather quickly. Without being a true highlight, "From Words to Silence" surprises with its dub feel -- is this the result of a Bill Laswell influence picked up from the Dark Side of the Moog collaborative series? A fair album overall, recorded at the onset of the 2000s, a decade that hasn't been gentle on Schulze, except for a couple of brilliant exceptions. ~ Francois Couture