Trancefer

Trancefer features strong performances by Wolfgang Tiepold on cello and Michael Shrieve on percussion. Although it was his second album recorded with digital instruments, and has a great deal of treble, it is an example of the Berlin School genre which developed in the 1970s. The second track, "Silent Running", was inspired by the science fiction film Silent Running starring Bruce Dern. This was the third Schulze piece to be inspired by science fiction, following "Dune" (from Dune, 1979) and "The Andromeda Strain" (1976; first collected on Historic Edition, 1995).

Trancefer is quite distinctive in its sound and arrangements. It is quite different from what Schulze was doing in the 1970s in the sense that it is not a composition that uses sequencers, transpositions, and a main melody line. Trancefer is more syncopated, and here the main focus is put on the dialog between the percussion and the chords Schulze is playing on the Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer.

Two pre-release versions of Trancefer were produced as test pressings before the release of the album. The first, limited to 300 copies, was cut at 45 RPM (the "normal cut"), and the other, limited to 500 copies, plays at 33 RPM and was half-speed mastered (the "halfspeed cut"). The mixes on both versions are different than the released versions. One track from each test cut was included on the 2006 Revisited reissue.

All tracks composed by Klaus Schulze.