“I Hate Titles”: Conrad Schnitzler interview
By Norbert Schilling
Original position in magazine: pp 34-35
This piece comprises selected excerpts from a recent interview, hand-picked and translated by Norbert Schilling. Norbert states that Conrad studied sculpture as a pupil of the great conceptual artist Joseph Beuys during the 1960s; also that he never actually studied under Stockhausen, as has been stated elsewhere. Norbert sent me a copy of Eruption (Marginal Talent MT-367), which is a reissue of the last live concert (1971 in Gottingen) of Kluster. This record was originally issued as Schwarz, credited to Schnitzler, Roedelius, Moebius and Freudigmann; pressed in an edition of 200 copies and commissioned by the Block gallery as a sound installation. Eruption should be required listening for anyone seriously interested in the development of electronic music as an art form, and in my view a copy should be issued with every purchase of a synthesizer as a benchmark of quality and as a stern warning to any juvenile dabblers in this area.
CONRAD: I am a performer, action-artist, an inter-media artist, not a multi-media artist. I work ‘in between’ the arts. The characterization of me as a ‘musician’ - I take this as an abusive word. I see myself as a composer - or some kind of an architect of cut ups / collages.
I’m not interested in having publicity or a public feedback; I just do my work and I can’t think about the possibility that someone will be interested, in some ten years or so, in what I do today. Personally I live here and now, as good as it is possible; the reflection about the fact, that I live now, means that this moment has already passed.
All the cassettes and CDs that I’ve privately released, I’ve let them run under the ‘Contemporary Music’ category. I do something, I go one way and I’m not prepared to go that way ten times in succession. So on principle, I do something I haven’t done before, that gives me satisfaction.
On principle, I sell nothing. I allow only a kind of understanding that some [money] can be recovered from it. I always retain for myself the job of editing the material. In the past, I have sold CDs by myself, but I don’t do this any more. I’ve even produced my material on records and sold them, but I’ve learned that an artist cannot really do everything. For me it’s no longer desperately important to sell anything now. I have enough to eat, a bed where I can sleep, and that’s really enough for me at the moment. Why should I want more? Why should I have success or gigantic amounts of money? Where did this idea originate - that you are what you earn? That you have to run after money? After all Pop Music is popular music - music for the people - but when [a pop musician] can earn so much money, one becomes corrupt very quickly. I did not want this. It is not worth striving for.
I’ve worked for nearly thirty years now, and most people are only interested in my old stuff. I feel this is a degradation of my present state of being - a negation of my work, the work that I do now. It would be better if people became acquainted with my new compositions.
I don’t want nostalgia. Life’s very short and it comes to an end pretty damn quick. So don’t live in the past, don’t live in the future - live now!
The records I made in the past came ‘out of the cooking pot’ straight onto the tape. In the widest sense of the word, this was ‘Techno’ - just the rhythm machines and a minimal melody. Then you give the recorded tracks ridiculous titles, for example ‘Die Rebelen haben sich in den Bergen versteckt’ (The rebels have hidden in the mountains) - and that’s it.
Krautrock
Kraut is cabbage - it gives you a bellyful of wind! Rock is Rock - it has something to do with guitar, bass and drums. Can, for example, they have something…but I don’t know what that thing is. Irmin Schmidt learned to conduct classical music; he was also a pupil of Karlheinz Stockhausen. I’ve never understood why he did this ridiculous rock music. Sure, Can recorded some things on their records that are rather abstract.
Irmin Schmidt overlaps a little with what I started to do, that I still do - I connect sounds, I compose. ‘Don’t think about the fact that you’re not a musician, or that you’re not perfect, don’t think about anything - just do it!” he said to me at the time - that was about 1967. That encouraged me, because that’s the way I’ve always worked.
I never liked hippie music! Boring, commonplace stuff! I preferred different things - Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Stockhausen, John Cage.
Kluster
My first group, before Kluster, was called Geräusche [= Noises]. If lots of people make noises, it becomes an orchestra. If you do it alone - for example the sound of a stone on linoleum - that’s a solo track. If you play these sounds and record them onto different tracks, it becomes a composition.
Kluster - that’s me! Make horrible noises with instruments and microphones and echo-machines. Just do it and produce as much noise as you want. If you organize this noise it’s not just pure chaos…and it can grow into music.
If you enter a factory floor, close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you, especially where they work with big parts of iron or steel. I studied engine building and when I went to sea I worked in the engine-room - I’ve always been involved with the control of sounds. If there’s a sound you don’t like, you turn it off or you turn it on at another place. Now you have made your first step in the principle of composition.
In the spectrum of the ‘white noise’ that we made with Kluster, all sounds are included Everything is included. And I’ve always held in-depth discussions on the subject of white noise with myself.
Titles…I hate titles. I hate programmed music! There are titles that others invented for my music, but these titles have nothing to with me. An example - the title ‘Electric Garden’ isn’t my idea. There was this delicious record called An Electric Storm by the English group White Noise. One of the best ever LPs made with electronic pop music - very stylish - but done excellently. There I found the words ‘Electric Garden’ that I simply borrowed from there as a title for my track.
There’s a plan to reanimate Kluster - with a K, not Cluster, but as Kluster 2000. In truth Kluster has never died. I’ve never said this group wouldn’t be there for all time - because I am the group, I am Kluster. I played gigs for years and years alone, using the name Kluster, and because there are such high waves [of interest] now - some kind of Krautrock-mania - I said for fun ‘Well let’s go and do some Kluster’.
Tangerine Dream
I don’t have anything to do with this [band]. That’s Soft-Music, [played] till you have to puke - that’s not my kind of material. It’s just Pop Music and no art - MOR for everyone. In the final analysis they work with the same feelings as pop singers. Let them have their feelings, but then they shouldn’t pretend that it’s art. I don’t like that. Soft Music appeals to the lowest instincts of the human being.
At all events popularity isn’t what I have ever looked for. I did what I had to do, and you could compare that to Joseph Beuys, who unloaded a lump of grease into the corner of the Art Gallery. [Everyone said] ‘…And this is art?’
It’s difficult for the art when it insists on this fact, that even ugliness has its charm.
For a list of available recordings, contact PLATE LUNCH, PO Box 1503, 53585 Bad Honnef, Germany. See elsewhere for reviews of Kluster’s first 2 records.