Ulrich Schnauss
Missing Deadlines - Selected Remixes

These are remix highlights from the career of German born Ulrich Schnauss, collated for the first time on this Rocket Girl release. Schnauss is known for his atmospheric synth outings that combine the spirits of shoegaze, Krautrock and dreamy electronica: on the one hand he is inspired by Chapterhouse and My Bloody Valentine, on the other you have Tangerine Dream, the Orb and 808 State. He stretches these influences out and fuses them back together with contemporary music to create amorphous agitated ambient tracks littered with jagged beats.

You may have heard of Schnauss from his keyboard contributions towards the Engineers and Longview, or you may have noticed his production talents at work with Kirsty Hawkshaw (of ‘It’s A Fine Day’ fame) and Exit Calm. Even if his CV doesn’t sound familiar, his work may have infiltrated your consciousness through the medium of car adverts or computer games. Maybe you heard about two of his past record labels suing Guns N' Roses for alleged copyright infringement? Hmmm.

Anyway, Missing Deadlines offers the sound of a producer/musician accomplished in his original brief of creating otherworldly headphone music. And it opens with former Bella Union belles Howling Bells’, their reworked ‘Setting Sun’ slowly dissolving into ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’ by A Sunny Day in Glasgow, full of backwards reverb and Linda Lamb-like vocals. And just in case you thought the carrier bag sunshine sparkle of shoegaze was well over, there are plenty of artists within this collection that show this is not the case. For instance, there are new gazers Asobi Seksu, presenting their reworked ‘Strawberries’ single, along with a made over ‘Coastline’ from Rachel Goswell, singer from seminal shoegazers Slowdive. Yep, old and new they are all present and still drifting.

This is a collection of tracks that are worth exploring and dreaming to. In Schnauss’ own words “the original songs are already great in their own right - which made it really inspiring to work with them”. And it shows.