Born in 1977, Ulrich Schnauss is a German electronic artist who is the multidimensional king of land made of ambient/acid/bleep/trance soundscapes. In interviews he has cited shoegaze acts such as Slowdive and the output of Warp Records as his influences. He has also said that he tries to create a synesthetic effect when he writes songs. His sound is a like Stars of the Lid but a little faster.

If you have ever used the peer-to-peer filesharing system known as SoulSeek than you might recall being recommended to check out Schnauss by the welcome msg when you made your account. This affirmation may in part be due to the fact that Schnauss is not afraid of eschewing record labels at times in order to release his music.

His first record, Far Away Trains Passing By, was released in 2001. In 2003 he released a Strangely Isolated Place which was followed by Goodbye in 2007. Last year he released two collaborations: the full length Epic (with Jonas Munk) and the self-released limited edition EP Two Trees with Kirsty Hawkshaw. His other EPs are Can't Explain, Will You Wait Here? (both in conjunction with Longview), ...Passing By, Quicksand Memory, Stars, Mute the Birds / Ship will Sail (with Pia Fraus), and NeverChanger (with A Shoreline Dream). In addition to those official releases, Schnauss has done several podcasts and promos.

He has done reworked the song Crazy for You for a Slowdive tribute which was released in 2002. Earlier this year, he remixed Death Cab For Cutie's Home is a Fire for their EP KEYS and CODES.

In 2009, Schnauss received attention in the mainstream music media when his record labels Independiente and Domino threatened Guns 'N Roses and Universal Music Group with a lawsuit to the tune of $1 million on behalf of Schnauss. The contention being that the ambient intro to the song "Riad N' the Bedouins" (off of their much-delayed and ill-received Chinese Democracy) sampled of two songs by Schnauss without permission. This lawsuit threat generated a lot of buzz two years ago; I could not find any indication as to the current status of that. I did find an interesting commentary by a law firm which criticized the publicist for Guns 'N Roses for making a statement which could have hurt their defense.

Schnauss has a soundcloud which has only one track on it. He's also on facebook (definitely worth checking out if you want to hear him live, he seems to play in London frequently) and has many tracks on youtube. He has also released music under the aliases Ethereal 77, The Extremist, Hexaquart, View To The Future and worked with the groups Beroshima, Engineers, Hair, Police In Cars With Headphones, Tinkabell.


discography from discogs, check there if you care to see the labels he's worked with.