condition (disc/cover): EX / EX

Matthias Thurow built Cornucopia (1986) alone in his own computerized studio, and described the process as painting: laying down tone colours, brushing them over, regrouping them into textures. Released on Erdenklang, Ulrich Rützel's Hamburg label that was then a leading home for German computer and electronic music, it is a patient, absorbing record, ambient in mood but more compositionally restless than the new-age tag suggests, with guest tenor saxophone and oboe lending two of the pieces a chamber-music air.

Some listeners have heard echoes of Johannes Schmoelling's solo work in it. Music that asks for attention rather than background. The Erdenklang CD.