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Ulrich Schnauss Has ‘A Long Way to Fall’ in New Video and Album

Ulrich Schnauss A Long Way to Fall Video Album

German googaze producer and unintential Chinese Democracy contributor Ulrich Schnauss is set to release his first solo album since 2007’s Goodbye. A Long Way to Fall is due February 12 via Domino and, according to a statement from the artist, marks a full return to synthlandia after a momentary detour into guitartown via a pair of collabs with the gentle Englishmen of Engineers. Our first taste comes with the titular song, a quiet storm revision that stretches gauzy keyboard textures over rounded bass bumps. The corresponding video, directed by Russian-born visual artist Nat Urazmetova, a.k.a. Hidden Shine, captures various trees and lights in a seemingly mist-addled pre-dawn beach scene. There is indeed lots of synthesizer, plus little blurts and blips of more traditional IDM, which seems in line with Schnauss’ announcement. Track list for A Long Way to Fall after this:

“Throughout the last decade, I recorded three albums that were trying to translate the early ’90s shoegaze aesthetic into an electronic context. After finishing the last album, Goodbye, I felt a need for a change of direction. At the same time, my music taste was changing drastically. While I had spent a couple of years mainly listening to songwriting based music (a lot of ‘indie’/band-type stuff), I was now rediscovering my love for electronic music based on more open structures. This provided the main inspiration of trying to record an album that would celebrate the synthesizer as the very capable musical instrument that it is, but without the need to disguise it behind a wall of echo and reverb. What satisfies me the most about this album is that I think I’ve managed to create a record that has a coherent, cohesive narrative.”

Ulrich Schnauss, A Long Way to Fall track list:
1. “Her and the Sea”
2. “Broken Homes”
3. “Like a Ghost in Your Own Life”
4. “A Long Way to Fall”
5. “I Take Comfort in Your Ignorance”
6. “A Forgotten Birthday”
7. “The Weight of Darkening Skies”
8. “Borrowed Time”
9. “Ten Years”
10. “A Ritual in Time and Death”