Rüdiger Lorenz

CD version. "If you're already aware of Rüdiger Lorenz , chances are you washed ashore on Southland , his cult kosmische curio graciously reissued by the ever-benevolent Bureau B in the middle of the last decade. Either that, or you're one of the few hundred electronic music obsessives who encountered his work the first-time round, giddily grabbing up the eighteen cassette, vinyl and CD releases the prolific part-timer delivered DIY style on his Syntape and Syncord imprints between 1981-1998. I say this because despite a catalogue both copious and singular, and a renewed interest amongst the switched on and tuned in since his premature passing in 2000, Rüdiger's reception has remained sadly subterranean - another example of audio inequity. As such, it falls to Synrise , attentively assembled by Rüdiger's son Tim , to shine some rightful light on this unique talent. Although Rüdiger impressed as a member of a local beat group in the seventies, growing exposure to the likes of Neu! , Tangerine Dream , Reich , and Riley pushed him towards the electronic and experimental, a style more suited to his solitary temperament. Unsurprisingly for a man who made eighteen solo albums around his day job, Lorenz was something of a loner, though it's hard to hear that through the emotional resonance of his releases. His search for sonic expression led him to overcome his lack of electrical knowhow, boldly soldering on to create organs, effects units and self-built modular systems, each in service to his specific sound. What then, specifically, is the sound of Synrise ? Selected from his first four releases, Queen of Saba (1981), Silver Steps (1981), Wonderflower (1982) and Earthrise (1983), this septet boasts sci-fi anthems and sine wave requiems, nebulous cosmic collages of snapping rhythm boxes, gurgling sequences and synthesized choirs? Though originally released across four different cassettes, these seven tracks all belong to the same sonic universe - just not the universe we're living in." - Patrick Ryder