Immortal Monday– Schneider TM’s 6 Peace EP

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mp3 – Schneider TM – The Light 3000

mp3 – Schneider TM – Reality Check

mp3 – Schneider TM – Fruktos

So I’m really going to reach for today’s Immortal Monday selection.  Back when I was working at a coffee shop,   I got a ride home one day with my manager because Ma wouldn’t let me have the car and, while rolling through the MKE she had this German electro group called Schneider TM on the Harmon-Kardon.

On my first listen I had no idea what I was hearing but I talked my way into a copy of the then-new 6 Peace EP.  Knowing as little as I did at the time about electro I knew it was pretty dope but didn’t really know what I had gotten myself into.  A few years later and after I had moved on employment-style and spent some time in a fully analog synth studio I came back to 6 Peace EP and had my mind blown by three tracks in particular.

Reality Check is a study in alternate-time-signature drum machine operation.  As a semi-skilled drum machine operator myself (please interpret ‘semi’ very liberally…) I know how tough it is to make drum machines run in any alternate time signature, much less 7/8 (or alternating bars of 4/4 and ¾, however you want to look at it).  I think high-level MPC operation is just bred straight into the Germans these days.  And if you’re a fan of the Vocoder this one’s for you—this is definitely pro-level robot-voice-operation (with a hint of a harmonizer in the background?  Genius!) if I’ve ever heard it.

There seems to be a movement towards broken-vocals and samples these days… more and more I’m reading about innovative recordings where people actually chop up their samples and purposely make it sound like the track stutters just to throw those gyrating folks at the club off and laugh when they all fall over.  Well folks, 6 Peace EP was a collection of tunes that the good folks of Schneider TM put out in aught-two—I’m so depressed that ’02 was seven years ago–and Fruktos takes this idea to the next level.  Not only are the samples broken up, the whole track was mauled with a dull butter knife until a perfect asymmetry (Oxymoron?  Where!?!) exists.  Dripping in reverb and tape-echo this track is perfect for a great set of headphones.  This track is actually a remix of a tune called Frogtoise which appears on the Zoomer LP that came out just before the EP—a pretty great track all by itself but nothing compared to this remix.

Schneider TM is best known for their remix of The Smiths’ There Is A Light that Never Goes Out titled The Light 3000.  Originally released on a 2000 EP called Binokular this track really seems to capture the mood—dare I say it—better than the original?  Again, skillfully Vocoded and filled with their signature beats-made-of-weird-noises-but-definitely-not-drums keeping the track moving this tune makes you want to stand  right in front of the 10-ton truck in the tune.  This version was voted as one of the best versions of the tune ever recorded by Brit-music-zine The Wire.

Have a listen and let me know what you think of Schneider TM’s 6 Peace EP.