Drummer Harald Grosskopf had been a mainstay of Germany’s experimental rock scene for over a decade by the time a pair of philanthropic fans, enamored of Grosskopf’s drumming and his pioneering use of synthesizers and sequencers, agreed to bankroll the recording of a solo album in the fall of 1979. Over the following months Grosskopf sequestered himself in a small apartment in the town of Kresfeld and recorded Synthesist, a dreamily hypnotic masterpiece that juxtaposes the characteristically minimal rhythms of classic Krautrock against cavernous layers of primitive synthesizer sounds. There was definite precedent for this marriage of moog and motorik, the 1976 Klaus Schulze album Moondawn even features some of the very same synthesizers. Yet while Moondawn’s pastoral synth-jams often meander past the 20-minute mark, Synthesist’s compositions, whether ambient washes of synthetic textures like “Trauma” or percussion- laden predecessors of house and techno such as “So Weit, So Gut,” are lean and focused by comparison, making Synthesist as accessible as it is technologically and stylistically innovative.