To finish the first quarter of the year we get another excellent berlin-school mix from EM master, Erwin Broers. Just like his ECM mix posted last month, Erwin sent me this mix last year but I spaced out and forgot I had until this year. Luckily for historical mixes like this one, the post is evergreen and can be appreciated anytime.
I'll repost what he said about volume 1:
"Here's a follow-up on my mix "Back To The Roots Of Berlin School". As you recall it featured a collection of electronic music tracks from the 1990s, that were inspired by the patterns, sounds and analog instruments of the 1970s and early 1980s. Back then, nobody talked about "Berlin School Electronic Music". That label would only appear somewhere mid 1990s, probably to honour the place where the genre was born. Fans in the early days would rather use the term "Kosmische Musik" (German for "Cosmic Music"). An explanation for the "cosmic" element is to be found in the use of the step sequencer, which made it easy to create hypnotic rhythm loops with up to 32 notes or steps, set a tempo, and mix them over electronic drones, soundscapes, soloing, washes, white noise and space sounds. The effect was to “float” the listener through endless terrestrial or cosmic space. For those not keen on using illicit substances, it was an interesting and harmless alternative "trip"!
I thought about creating a mix of some classic pieces from that first era, but soon found out one mix would not be enough to do justice to all the fantastic "Cosmic Music" that was made back then. So we get two mixes! This post is for volume 2 and you can find volume 1 here - https://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2025/06/kosmische-musik-starters-guide-vol-1.html
Thanks, Erwin, for another great cosmic trip!
Cheers!
[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00:00 Tim Blake - New Jerusalem (Blake's New Jerusalem, 1978)
- 00:16:01 Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygène parts 1 & 2 (Oxygène, 1976)
- 00:31:14 Vangelis - Soil Festivities part 2 (Soil Festivities, 1984)
- 00:37:25 Alan Parsons Project - The Gold Bug (The Turn Of A Friendly Card, 1980)
- 00:41:47 Robert Schroeder - The Day After X (Harmonic Ascendant, 1979)
- 00:49:22 Edgar Froese - Maroubra Bay (Epsilon In Malaysian Pale, 1975)
- 00:53:24 Ole Højer Hansen - Song Blue (Nudity, 1988)
- 01:00:30 Synco - Silent Water ('85-'89, 1990)
- 01:02:40 Mergener & Weisser - Sunbeam (Beam-Scape, 1984)
- 01:12:52 Wavestar - Chase The Evening (Moonwind, 1987)
- 01:25:26 Tangerine Dream - Logos Live part 1 (2nd movement) (Logos, 1982)
- 01:38:46 Manuel Göttsching - Dream (Dream & Desire, rec.1977-pub.1991)
- 01:44:24 Klaus Schulze - Georg Trakl (X - Sechs Musikalische Biographien, 1978)
- 01:49:44 Michael Hoenig - Hanging Garden Transfer (Departure From The Northern Wasteland, 1977)
- 02:00:30 end
