BODY LOVE - VOL. 2

The sequel to Klaus Schulze's popular 1997 film score actually has no relation to the earlier LP, despite the obvious similarities. The album wasn't, as stated on its back cover, "additions to the original soundtrack"; nor was it a collection of leftover tracks from the same recording session. In fact it might never have been recorded if Schulze wasn't persuaded, with a polite twist of the arm by his new Island Records boss Chris Blackwell, to "make another record for us like Moondawn or Body Love" (quoting Schulze's recollections). It was a suggestion he apparently couldn't refuse at the time.

The new artwork further reinforced a phony connection to the prurient attractions of the earlier record, famously commissioned for a Dutch porno movie. But all that artfully posed flesh on the front cover wasn't completely gratuitous. There was an undeniable eroticism to Schulze's keyboard technique at the time, disproving the stubborn misconception that synthesizers were cold and sterile ("for me, electronic music is totally sensual", he said in a 2004 interview).

The album opener "Nowhere, Now Here", one of his longest intergalactic jams to date, was a quintessential slice of Berlin School hypnotism, slowly building steam over 29-epic minutes. The album's other new track, "Moogetique" (which gave its name to the album in some markets), is a brooding yet beautiful example of Schulze's music at its formless best. In between is the punchy "Stardancer II", not a new recording but a slightly longer remix of its namesake from Volume One.

In style and content the second album is entirely equal to its predecessor. And yet it was still a cash-grab re-boot in a way, and the sequencing of tracks (in the linear, not the electronic sense of the word) lacks the natural flow of the original Body Love. Later re-issues include a generous but meandering postscript, rescued from the vaults and given the numbskull title "Buddy Laugh (A Rock 'n' Roll Bolero)". Unlike other Klaus Schulze bonus tracks, this one really does resemble an outtake, despite the awesome rhythmic drone that surfaces deep into its 23+ minute running time.

It helps to hear Volume Two as a direct continuation of the first Body Love album, rather than what it really is: an unrelated companion (it's a pity the two weren't packaged together as a twin-LP...imagine the gatefold sleeve art!). But even a good sequel will have trouble measuring up to its forefather, and 'Body Love 2' will always be the next best thing to the original version. Post coitum omne animalium triste est, so forth.