AmbientMusicGuide.com - Ulrich Schnauss

As beloved as much by indie rock fans as electronica and chill enthusiasts, Berlin musician Ulrich Schnauss seemed to appear out of nowhere in 2001 with his sublime Faraway Trains Passing By. The truth is, he had been active for years under other names; even a casual listen to Trains shows none of the rawness or misfires you'd expect from an electronic composer taking his first steps.

These two albums of ambient pop instrumentals with occasional wispy vocals are chock full of great melodies and sweeping widescreen vistas. Their brilliance is in how they manage sound epic while remaining intimate and personal. At the core of Schnauss music is a liquid sound that's immediately recognisable - on both his own albums and the many remixes he's done for the chill, house and rock acts who've been knocking on his door. He uses extremely long delay and reverb effects on his guitars and synths to stretch out layers of notes and chords until they arc endlessly across the massive spaces he creates. His sound hangs magically in mid-air while always retaining a sense of momentum and purpose.

This distinctive ambience has led to frequent and valid comparisons with indie pop/rock acts like The Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and Chapterhouse (all bands, incidently, that have been tagged with that utterly useless term "shoegaze"). His insistent electronic breakbeats, on the other hand, owe something to the rhythms that underpinned the lush ambient techno of UK label Warp Records during its Artificial Intelligence era. Schnauss may wear his influences on his sleeve, but how.

Think of these albums as two sides of the same coin. Far Away Trains Passing By is the happier and more dreamy of the two, while A Strangely Isolated Place suggests a darker side with its distorted electric guitar textures, more obvious indie rock references and even wordless female vocals on occasion. Both are wonderful records full of beauty and longing, blessed with tunes you will find difficult to expel from your mind. And if you want those good impressions to last, avoid his third album Goodbye (2007) at all costs.

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