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Ulrich Schnauss returns with more lush, ambient music fitting for any chill-out session or long summer drive with the windows down.
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An album that doesn't immediately astound, but gradually unfurls in dense atmospheric strands.
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This, his third album and major-label debut, stretches this sea of sound even further, ebbing and flowing from ethereal opener "Never Be The Same," to the folky strum of "For Good."
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With Goodbye, he's finally got the levels just right. By moving even closer to the shoegazer sound, the result sounds less like pilfering and more like reinvention.
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SpinGracefully melancholic electronica with too much soul to be relegated to sushi-restaurant background music. [Aug 2007, p.106]
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Goodbye is striking and rewarding in its own way; it just might take a little more time to sink into the murky new agey abyss.
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Goodbye's shoegaze fascination, organic glow, and subtle shifts belie its apparent initial simplicity.
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Goodbye follows in the same muted patterns as 2003's "A Strangely Isolated Place," but layers on the vocals (in thin, gauzy, washes of course) over his treble-heavy, misty backdrops of beats and synths.
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In fact, "delayed," "drenched," and "dervish" pretty much sum up Goodbye. Schnauss piles on effects and layers in a psychedelic melee that would leave Ozric Tentacles and Pink Floyd standing transfixed by his stroboscopic strategies.
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BlenderHe took three years to produce this follow-up, and the labor shows, for good and ill. [August 2007, p.117]
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Goodbye contains both the best and the worst of Schnauss’ output until now.
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It’s an evanescent experience, for whilst you’re awestruck by the sonics beneath the electronic sheen, you can’t remember anything much about them after they’ve evaporated at the end.
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Schnauss sounds like a cross between Chapterhouse, My Bloody Valentine circa Soon, the Cocteau Twins and Enya, chugging along on barely audible Balearic beats.
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Goodbye has a tendency to blur together in many places during the course of ten tracks and just under an hour in running length. If you like his past work, you might want to check this one out, but others will probably want to take a pass.
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Goodbye's overall prettiness is both its weakness and its strength; the album is pleasant but blends into the background a bit too easily.
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The bad news is that the overwhelming vibe is still that of easy listening digital mush.
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Under The RadarThe lack of a cohesive album sound and memorable melodies are real problems. [Summer 2007, p.88]
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On the whole Goodbye isn't really much more than a background music soundtrack, something that would probably sound much better in an elevator than on an iPod. That said, it’s good for running a mile to.
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PopMattersIn an apparent attempt to open up his appeal to broader audiences, Schnauss leaves his compositions seeming oddly detoothed.
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MagnetWith a few exceptions, the rest of Goodbye remains little more than background music destined for life in service to candle boutiques and Saturn commercials. [Summer 2007, p.106]
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It was possible to ignore Schnauss' new age leanings previously but they're rammed home mercilessly here making too much of this album sound like Enya-period Sigur Ros.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 13
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Mixed: 0 out of 13
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Negative: 1 out of 13
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Aug 19, 2010
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ChelcSep 27, 2007
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JVTAug 31, 2007