Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4

Crossed my eyes a couple of years ago and finally hearing this makes want share what an exceptional album this is, considering when it was made.

Agreed, tony879.

Try dropping any section of the original composition amidst a higher energy club setting & as mindblowing as it is, you will sadly lose the floor as the energy & pace drop. (Playing to an 80's Ibiza crowd, not so much. Times have changed).

ORIGINAL = Ambient MASTERPIECE
Sueno Latino / Paperclip People 'Remake' etc. = club ready interpretations

2 different listening environments, all versions well suited to their intended audiences.

Can’t understand the hate for the Sueno Latino version?
The two pieces are part of the same picture although decades apart.
Sueno continues the club link with added piano and drums, vocals, bass etc.
Art is subjective but you get the best of both worlds. One stretches out a hand to the other.

An intemporal masterpiece, a lot of emotion by listening this musical travel.

"E2-E4 is the opening Chess move, a very good title because it was the first recording that I
released under my name. I connected all those synthesizers and sequencers, for bass, solo and
voice with drum machines, using effects. I used a analog drum synthesizer, a big from EKO from
Italy, a hand build machine with only four copies in the World, and a second one from Pearl.
The solo voice was made with ARP synthesizers.
In the beginning nobody really understood what it was, it was a bit too early for this music
(Manuel laughs). It was a very fluent piece of music, very minimalistic, one hour floating and
loating without big changes, many DJs wanted to play something on top of it, the biggest
popularity came from the DJs some years later. I never intended to be like a dance kind of
music. It became a Larry Levan favorite on Paradise Garage, and people from Chicago and
Detroit would also played on many other clubs, as well as other cities.
Sueño Latino sampled it on their homonym release, and they payed Royalties, but not much,
because in the beginning nobody knew how far it would go. We tried to renegociate, but at
the end they wouldn’t be allowed to keep releasing it.
I that I found out something was missing on the credits part because on the Creative
they did not make World releases, and at the end they gave the licenses to other compilations
without the proper credits. I would rather say it was a kind of a Mediterranean and Latin
feeling on the scene, but I never imagined that my music would be adopted by it as Sueño
Latino. Maybe it has something to do with my use with the guitars, but I think it doesn’t work
when you want to sound like something. I just play and I just want to sound something what I
like." - Manuel Göttsching (Electronic Standards interview, 2011)

It's so funny that few seemed interested on this record in mid 80s, when many new copies were lying on the shelves of record shops and you could buy it for few marks. Suddenly it became sough after in early 90s, following the cover version of an Italian house/dance act. And then its fame increased steadily, up to the status of a sort of holy grail. When Manuel recorded this music, it was a sort of fun playing, without any idea of what it would become some years later. At least I hope that he could get some good money and make a living out of it.

Suenio Latino brought me here. What a rip off. After 25 years I discover this original source.

timeless masterpiece. starting off your day with this and a cup of Vietnamese coffee is a total bliss.

can we have a 9x7inch box coloured marbled or even in red single sided
series?

With regards to the wide reaching opinions on whether or not this recording is worth it's salt as 'a classic', both in a wider sense and within the boundaries of avant guard electronics & Krautrock; It easily stands alone from it's predecessors due to its choice of sparse ingredients, percussive qualities & style, and from it's contemporaries due to its length. From Sueno Latino to Remake Uno/Duo, it's influence through direct sampling & cover versions spawned shorter dance-floor excursions, with Sueno Latino (The Latin Dream) being highly responsible for the Balearic comparison's to which the original is often drawn.

In the vein of the work of Manuel Gottsching, Klaus Schulze & the troup of talent forming the German minimalist synth rock foundation, this can hardly be deemed as exciting, nor groundbreaking. In fact by comparison, E2-E4 can sound a bit like being on hold while calling an insurance company. Sublime, calming and clean: Not quite the overall definition of the genre from which it came.

It can only really be taken as it is; regardless of what is was supposed to be, ought to be or isn't- a translucent, euphoric calling of hot sun & turquoise sea's, or a fantasy adventure into your own personal paradise. Or not, as the case might be ;-)

Personally I love it.