Conrad Schnitzler: The Cassette CONcert
an exhibition organized with Gen Ken Montgomery
October 16 - November 13, 2024
Ergot Records
32 E. 2nd St.
New York, NY 10003
Conrad Schnitzler was born in 1937 in Düsseldorf and studied sculpture with Joseph Beuys before abandoning all of his sculptures in a grassy field and turning his attention to experiments with synthesizer and tape. He was an early member of Tangerine Dream and a founding member— alongside Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius—of Kluster, with whom he recorded three LPs before leaving in 1971, prompting the changing of the spelling of their name to Cluster. He also founded a short-lived Krautrock super group called Eruption, with a revolving membership that included Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching as well as members of Embryo, Agitation Free, and Amon Düül.
A non-musician in possession of one the first Synthie A synthesizers in 1970, Schnitzler turned to cassettes as a means of layering various single-voiced tracks to create larger compositions that were distinct and recognizable, yet constantly in flux. He first created the Kassettenorgel (cassette organ), consisting of two large black cabinets containing six stereo tape decks, all internally wired to a stereo output through which he could feed pre-recorded cassettes of his choosing. This concept was extended to mobile cassette actions, often carried out in public spaces, during which Schnitzler would wear a belt of walkmen wired to a megaphone built into a metal helmet worn on his head.
These practices culminated in the creation of the Cassette Concert, which Ken Montgromery has defined as:
a method of composing and performing electronic music in a dynamic way [consisting] of a group of recorded cassettes containing single tracks of a larger composition, intended for live performances that can be given anywhere in the world, at any time, by anybody. When these groups of cassettes are played simultaneously, the combined sounds constitute the basic, although variable, form of the composition.
One of Schnitzler’s closest collaborators, Montgomery was the first authorized conductor of the Cassette Concert. In 1989, he created his own performance venue, Generator Sound Art Gallery—located at 200 E. 3rd St. in the East Village—featuring an octophonic sound system specifically designed to conduct Schnitzler’s Cassette Concerts in a weekly series, presented in pitch black, called Music in the Dark.
Shnitzler was prolific until his passing in 2011, releasing hundreds of recordings of idiosyncratic electronic music on labels like Edition Block, Egg Records, Sky Records, and Generations Unlimited—a label he founded in 1987 with David Prescott and Montgomery. He dreamed of a Thousander Program, a Cassette Concert for one thousand cassettes, which has yet to be realized.
The exhibition features a selection of photos, collages, ephemera, and a drawing related to Schnitzler's Cassette Concert project and collaborations with Montgomery.