Paul Schutze - The Second Law (2021)

"Conjures a strange world... A world with a desert at its heart but with glimpses of Oceana and Antarctica on the horizon... A beautifully concise and suggestive journey. Gorgeous."
The Wire

Australian experimental / industrial / ambient artist Paul Schütze collects career highlights on The Second Law, a compilation of equally gritty and beautiful key works from the 80’s and 90’s, remastered and available for the first time on vinyl.

A boundless creative spirit, Paul Schütze has worked for over forty years as a musician, photographer, visual artist and perfumer. He has exhibited at institutions such as the Hayward Gallery, the V&A and Madrid’s Arco, held residencies at the Cité des Arts in Paris and has works in collections worldwide. He has collaborated with musicians from Jah Wobble to Toshinori Kondo, from Bill Laswell to David Toop, and worked both as a filmscore composer and music critic in print.

A new, remastered compilation of key works from Schütze’s catalogue, The Second Law, collates music from various periods and albums. Represented here are tracks from 1990’s The Annihilating Angel, an album of blissed-out fourth-world mystery; from the transcendent homage to traditional Indonesian gamelan music The Rapture of Metals (1993); from the ethereal, spiritual, Nino Rota-esque melancholy of 1991’s Regard: Music by Film. It is occasionally dark, industrial and begrimed; occasionally paradisiacal and breathtakingly elegant. There are works of celestial, astronomic grandeur alongside microscopically detailed miniatures. Empty, deserted spaces of man-made abandonment contrast with studies of ornate natural beauty.