Klaus Schulze - Totem [Stretched]

Picture Music is the fourth album of electronic music by German musician Klaus Schulze. It was recorded in late 1974 and released in January 1975 on Brain Records.

Historically, Picture Music was incorrectly identified as Schulze's third album, allegedly preceding Blackdance (1974), based on an erroneous liner note stating it was recorded in 1973. His first five albums were displayed in correct order on the back cover of his next album, Timewind, but his tenth album X (1978) displayed the previous albums with Picture Music explicitly identified as the third, dated 1973, implying this was the release date as well. The same declaration was made on his twentieth album (not counting collaborations and records made under the name Richard Wahnfried), En=Trance (1988).

When preparing a detailed discography in the 1990s, Schulze's biographer and publicity manager Klaus D. Müller researched his personal diaries and discovered that the album did not go to press until early 1975. The album is now identified as a January 1975 release at Schulze's website, which Müller maintains. Despite the album sounding somewhere between Blackdance and Timewind, Müller concluded at the time that the album was probably recorded before Blackdance, but released after. Later, Müller discovered that Schulze had not acquired an EMS VCS 3 synthesizer until mid 1974, so the album must have been recorded in the latter half of that year, after the recording of Blackdance. Therefore, the official discography was revised again, and Picture Music is now regarded as Schulze's fourth album for both recording and release dates.