Schiller (album 3) - Leben

Schiller's third album, Leben, is one of my favorite of his albums, and there are quite a few versions of it in the market, with varying tracks.

It was recorded in 2002-2003 and released in Germany on 13/10/2003. 

  

The regular 17 track editions of Leben starts like most of his albums with an introduction called Willkommen, lasting here 1:11, welcoming us, in German, into Schiller's music. 

The titles alternate between instrumentals (tracks 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17 in the normal order) and songs, featuring guests :

Maya Saban (track 3, I've seen it all and 7, I miss you) ; 

Mila Mar (5, Liebe and 12, Babel),  

Heppner (who used to be in the band Wolfsheim, on track 8, Leben... I feel you), 

Sarah Brightman (10, The smile), 

Veljanov (13, Desire), 

and Kim Sanders, on my favorite song, Delicately yours (track 16). Beware, this track has very powerful bass. I love it, but it took some time for me to find out that the sound of it was travelling in the entire appartement, through the walls and floors.. It took my wife telling me this was quite a noticeable bass sound, but that with distance, she couldn't hear the singing. 

Actually, it's the live version of this song on the Atemlos concert, and the very first discovery of Schiller's music through this concert which was suggested to me on youtube, that I became a fan. Here it is, with as much quality as youtube can give on the individual song. Or here, on the full concert, 1:17:40 into the file. (I have the Bluray edition, which I'll review elsewhere)

On this album version, Kim Sanders' voice is haunting and the melody carries me into a trance-mode quite often, or rather most of the time, but the live is even more powerful (whilst reducing the aforementioned bass levels). 

Delicately yours on the album is so worth waiting for and finish a series of melodic songs which flow naturally into one another, and which started with track 12, Babel, with beats which repeat again in 13, Desire, are a bit less present (but still are) in 14, Stille,  before they come back in 15, Vergangenheit, and culminate with 16, Delicately yours. This construction is so interesting to follow and a bit of a rare thing, I find, to use similar beats in different layers or sections of these songs and creating a certain harmony.

There is also another harmony created by the two tracks before and after all those, 11 Dreikland, and 17, Aucklang, but it's a bit less prevalent in the notes.  

Even though I love the order and flow of this album, I would have preferred track 16 to be pushed to 17 as it offers a wonderful musical outro and fade-out, but otherwise, the mixture of instrumental pieces, sometimes with huge beats, sometimes much quieter, with those rhythmic songs is well balanced and tends to make me dance in my seat as I listen to it. 

There is a version of I've seen it all with Sarah Brightman instead of Maya Saban available on youtube as well as the US promo edition, released under Radikal records, but I prefer Saban's voice, more suited to the slower rhythm of this song, than the echoed and powerful Brightman's voice for it - not that I dislike or dismiss that version, but I do have a preference between the two versions. 

Also, on the Australian 2CD edition of Leben, Sarah Brightman's guest on The smile has a very different voice treatment as well as musical arrangements than the regular edition ; in this case, I love both versions equally. 

Leben is such a wonderful album to listen to. Every now and again, I still notice new sounds, even though I have listened to it many times. I enjoy and play it very often, on the Hifi in 7.1 set-up, or on headphones when am on the computer, or out running errands, as I copies it for private use, onto my phone, alongside the rest of Schiller's discography (or rather, what I managed to copy thus far.) 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's talk now about editions

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The most common and regular edition has 17 tracks. It's available on CD with dolby surround, and also on SACD with dolby surround 2.0 as well as a 5.1 multi-channel layer on this hybrid edition, with the same track listing, but offering slight differences which I'll point hereafter. 

German editions are called Leben, whilst international ones call it Life, which is the translation.  

The normal CD (there are several pressings, with altered colors on the cover, but no changes to track listing nor duration / arrangements). 

There is also a limited edition, with a grey cover, but again, all the rest is the same.

The SACD. Note that the time differences on tracks 

8 (leben... I feel you) which is 3:49 on the regular CD as well as 2.0 layer of the SACD, but 5:35 on the 5.1 layer

10 (the smile) is normally 3:38 and on 5.1 layer extended to 5:34 

I cannot comment on sound quality of this particular SACD, nor the musical differences of those 2 tracks, as I don't own this edition. 

Don't confuse this album with it's promo edition, sub-titled Acht Lieder Vorab which includes only 8 tracks, presented in a cardboard sleeve with a black cover 

There are also a number of 2 cd editions, such as on barcode 0602498656464  from Germany, adding a 14 minutes long schill out mix, and my own two editions 

Code  0602498658079  titled special MediaMarkt edition, adding not only the schill out mix but also a bonus song called Troy, schill out remix, featuring Sinead O'connor. This edition presents several issues, the first is listing the long schill out as track 1 & Troy on track 2, whilst they are actually reversed. 

The second issue is that Itunes have these titles and their respective duration reversed as well, thus giving Schil out mix as track one but with Tory's duration, and vice-versa... 

If you copy your cd into an mp3, you'll have to manually edit those 2 tracks. 

Code 9316797988799  released in Australia, offers a second CD with 9 club mixes for songs from this and previous albums, as well as the Leben DVD, including film clips, live concert fotage from Berlin & Frankfurt, and extras making off and photo gallery. I'll detail this dvd elsewhere. 

The first CD is more or less the album, shortened to 15 tracks, with song titles and some of the lyrics as well, translated into English in most cases (not in the case of Das Glockenspiel, which means the Glockenspiel, a musical instrument, and which, besides that, is from the first album!). 

The track listing for both CD's is totally wrong on the cover, so read the proper list on the link for this bare-code above. Furthermore, the cd information displayed on Itunes is as in this image, is totally wrong and even worse than the cover, so you'll have to either find a way around that, or manually edit each title if you were to copy as mp3... I suggest you just get one of the other editions for this part, as the remix cd will already require this tedious work. 

Also, as stated on discogs linked above, track 8 of CD1 (I miss you) has an audio errors at 1:18 ; 4:04 & 5:34, but since I have the other edition, I use this one for the DVD and for the remixes.