Synrise - Early Tape Recordings 1981-83

If you're already aware of Rüdiger Lorenz, chances are you washed ashore on Southland, his cult kosmische curio graciously reissued by the ever-benevolent Bureau B in the middle of the last decade. Either that, or you're one of the few hundred electronic music obsessives who encountered his work the first time round, giddily grabbing up the eighteen cassette, vinyl and CD releases the prolific part-timer delivered DIY style on his Syntape and Syncord imprints between 1981-1998.

I say this because despite a catalogue both copious and singular, and a renewed interest amongst the switched on and tuned in since his premature passing in 2000, Rüdiger's reception has remained sadly subterranean - another example of audio inequity. As such, it falls to Synrise, attentively assembled by Rüdiger's son Tim, to shine some rightful light on this unique talent.

Based in Ingelheim on the south of the Rhein, Rüdiger was a pharmacist by trade, electing to spend his spare time and money on his musical monomania. Given the medicated nature of his stark and other-worldly synthscapes, one could be forgiven for presuming a predilection for the prescription pad, but in truth Lorenz was a teetotaller with an insatiable sonic thirst. This was the owner of 10,000 records and 38 synthesisers - a man who sang Kraftwerk's "Fahrn Fahrn Fahrn auf der Autobahn" as a nursery rhyme to a Tiny Tim while he sat between the blinking sequencers pretending to be a space man.

Unsurprisingly for a man who made eighteen solo albums around his day job, Lorenz was something of a loner, though it's hard to hear that through the emotional resonance of his releases. Selected from his first four releases, Queen of Saba (1981), Silver Steps (1981), Wonderflower (1982) and Earthrise (1983), this septet boasts sci-fi anthems and sine wave requiems, nebulous cosmic collages of snapping rhythm boxes, gurgling sequences, and synthesised choirs.