Ulrich Schnauss - Now Is a Timeless Present Box Set

I forget where I'd read about this - may have been in the ongoing ambient recommendations thread, but months ago someone mentioned that Schnauss was working on a compilation of his solo work thus far. This has been an "incoming" release for ages with even US acknowledging that he was well behind schedule working on it.

I'd taken to periodically checking his Facebook page to see if any updates had been presented and was rewarded over the weekend when I saw that the set was not only released, but that it was a pretty serious chunk of material.

Per his Facebook page, Now Is a Timeless Present is out digitally as of December 6, 2019, with the physical box to follow on January 24, 2020. He presented an iTunes UK link to the set, but Qobuz has a listing as well.

For the true joy of joys, the Qobuz hi-res option (24-bit, 48kHz) was only $10.99. Since I intend to also pick this up physically once that option is opened up, I felt zero guilt in taking advantage of that pricing.

Just wanted to put this up there for any other fans. For myself, I'd only had the two disc release of Far Away Trains Passing By, which I'd always intended to add to. Since the availability of his stuff is a bit touch and go, this is a great one-stop shop for me.

Anyway, curious to hear other thoughts and impressions.

 

£8.49 for over 7 hours of Ulrich Schnauss music, all in 24bit quality to boot is tantamount to theft. It might be the biggest musical bargain ever

Now Is A Timeless Present - A Re... | Ulrich Schnauss / | High Quality Music Downloads | 7digital United Kingdom

 

Eagerly looking forward to this set, although this line from the press release gives me slight pause: “...with quite substantial reworking done to his most recent two albums, 'A Long Way To Fall' and 'No Further Ahead Than Today'.”

Nevertheless, it’s encouraging to see an Ulrich Schnauss thread in SHForumland!

 

I'm not familiar with his later stuff and was waiting for the excuse of this set to really dig into the "body of work," but based on what I'm hearing in the first two "discs," which are only remastered, you should at least be able to expect that this isn't a sonic hatchet job. Nice clarity and separation (not that the first album needed much help, but it does seem an improvement).

 

My initial impressions of the packaging are very good. A sturdy box containing each of the releases in cardboard gatefold sleeves, with the Faraway Trains.. bonus CD packaged with the accompanying main CD. The artwork is very nice in my opinion - a lot of artwork in the booklet. The booklet is short on words - track listings and credits etc but not commentary. I'm most familiar with Faraway Trains.. and have enjoyed a couple of listens through to it and to the bonus disk. The bonus material for this is as good as the main CD - lovely to listen to such melodic material again. I recognized a couple of the bonus tracks from the Blue Skied an' Clear Morr Music compilation on Morr. I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of these.