Michael Shrieve Kevin Shrieve Klaus Schulze Transfer Station Blue Cosmic Prog Synth LP

Michael Shrieve with Kevin Shrieve and Klaus Schulze – Transfer Station Blue


Label: Fortuna Records

FOR-LP023
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Record: VG+ VG++
Cover: VG+
Include a printed inner sheet.
Released: 1984
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Experimental, Prog Rock



Tracklist


A1 Communiqué: "Approach Spiral" 13:20
A2 Nucleotide 4:41



B1 Transfer Station Blue
Bass – Will Lee Congas – Sammy Figueroa Rhythm Guitar [Chords] – Hiram Bullick 11:57
B2 View From The Window 7:11


I like this album basically for the 'View From A Window' track. It is a tranquil progressive piece that is reminiscent of Tangerine Dream 'Cloudburst Flight' from Force Majeure.


The acoustic guitar and synthesizer weave a very relaxing vibe. The title track 'Transfer Station Blue' has a disco feel to it like some late-70s Santana tunes. 'Nucleotide' is a drum-based track that would likely please any Michael Schrieve fan.

Though credited to Michael Shrieve alone, Transfer Station Blue is as much a Klaus Schulze album as it is Shrieve's. In addition to playing all the synthesizers, the tracks on Transfer Station Blue bear Schulze's unmistakable signature: slowly accumulating masses of synthetic sound driven by spiraling sequencer engines and augmented with meteor showers of spinning electronic effects that ricochet off the dense, gleaming fuselage that forms the structural center of each of the album's four tracks.

Shrieve may be piloting this ship but Schulze is most certainly the navigator, plotting each sonic destination and course change with the relentless logic of his wave tables and vector coordinates. Shrieve's astounding percussion technique--like a four-armed android behind his customized drum kit--provides the propulsive impetus that thrusts "Communique: Approach Spiral" to the outer edges of the galaxy. Schulze's transwarp-powered sequencers and hovering synth pads provide both directional stability and atmospheric counterpoint. "Nucleotide" is far more experimental in design.


Shrieve's programming of his Simmons pads, creating uncanny drum and un-drum like sounds, gives the piece a musique concrete feel, though Schulze's airy synths provide a tonal center that acts as a kind of centrifuge, keeping it balanced between chaotic noise and regulated harmony. "Transfer Station Blue" really warps out to velocities far beyond light speed. The addition of some ultra-funky guitar and bass charts to Shrieve's superhuman drumming and the cosmic foam of Schulze's hypersonic synth engines creates a space groove so infectious you'll need a spike full of Thorazine to stop your ass from twitching. Perhaps as a rejoinder to the nasty space funk of "Transfer Station Blue," "View from the Window" is deliberately subdued and pensive.


Without Shrieve's frenetic percussion, "View from the Window" floats through the vast and profound silences of the deep, borne aloft on the cooling exhaust of Schulze's decelerating synthesizers and the simple but effective rhythm guitar of Kevin Shrieve. It's like a last mournful look at the Milky Way before drifting out forever into the limitless ocean of intergalactic space.


Michael Shrieve - Transfer Station Blue

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Michael Shrieve - Communique "Approach Spiral"


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Michael Shrieve with Kevin Shrieve and Klaus Schulze - View from the Window

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