The Dark Side Of The Moog series has to be Klaus Schulze's most successful collaboration to date.

For anyone who hasn't heard of these releases, they're a collaboration between Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlook,
with Bill Laswell occasionally showing up.

They're touted as limited editions on the FAX label, but who knows since they're pretty easy to obtain.
Musically, they're all over the map, ranging from pop, to space, to pure ambient.
I wouldn't want to state which release is best since the styles are so varied; it would be like comparing the
various Star Trek movies (O.K., the even numbered movies were the best).

Each album in the series consists of one long track, broken down into smaller pieces,
named after a play on words of a previous Pink Floyd release.

The titles so far are:

I   - Wish You Were There
II  - A Saucerful of Ambience
III - Phantom Heart Brother
IV - Three Pipers at the Gates of Dawn
V  - Psychedelic Brunch
VI - The Final DAT

You can figure out the corresponding Pink Floyd original names.
DSOTM VI (The Dark Side of the Moog, Volume Six; whew, that's one hell of an acronym to remember!)
is the latest release in the series.

I must say that, having collected all the previous releases, this is the first album that actually entertains me from start to finish.
With the others, there was at least one piece that was so totally out of place or horrible, that it forced me to program my
CD player to skip the track(s).

DSOTM VI consists of six tracks.

The first one starts off with a bunch of ambient mumbling by Schulze and Namlook.
Oh man, I hope I don't have to listen to an hour of this!!!

The second track redeems the album instantly.
It has a very good percussion track, excellent synthesizers, and a wailing lead.
It's the best piece on the album (IMHO).

The third track includes a lot of sounds from Schulze's latest equipment find, the Rave-o-lution
(I think; I know squat about instruments but the sounds experienced first showed up on the A.Y.S. or
Tradition & Vision CD's which uses this instrument).
Much more up-beat that the previous track.

The fourth track is also up-beat (after a slow intro), but doesn't have much in the way of lead keyboards.
Then, there's a bunch of spacey mumbling like the first track. Oooh, Lastwell's on this track. Can you spot him?
I can't because I know squat about his style.
The track ends with some guitar-like leads and more Rave-o-lution beats.

The fifth track is an obvious reference to Schulze's "Are You Sequenced" release.
I suspect that it was an out-take since it has A.Y.S. written all over it.
The piece consumes 24 minutes of the 64 minute album.

Finally, there's part six. It's also heavily influenced by Schulze again, with A.Y.S. style passages,
and his Rave-o-lution machine.

I would rate the last two DSOTM releases as the best, with the other ones up for debate.
As usual, though, you never know what you're going to get from a KS release.
This is one of the most appealing aspects of his music; but it's very costly if you're on a budget!

I look forward to hearing DSOTM VII.

Mike Livsey

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