The Hundred Thousand Dollar Record

One year of work, twenty-five years in the making. On April 25, 2026, Tim Ra and Jens Strüver sat down together in front of an audience for a listening session at Lovelab Dreamspace to talk about their new album. A conversation about Bernard Herrmann and Gustav Holst, about the rise and fall of the Kosmische Kuriere around Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser — and about artificial intelligence as a universal archive.

With Kosmische Kuriere Tim Ra and Jens Strüver are not organizing an escape to the stars. They are inventing a new way to inhabit Earth from the cosmos. Amidst floating jazz sounds, astral exotica, analog synths, AI-powered visions, and healing science fiction, this album released on Lovelab resembles a postcard from a less brutal future. Music of thresholds, care, and transformation. A retro-futuristic odyssey between Krautrock and empathetic utopia.

Olivier Lehoux, Solénoïde (France)

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I — The Call

Jens Strüver: We were taking a creative break when Tim called me and said: Jens, it's time, you can make music with artificial intelligence.

Tim Ra: I had just finished the first album created with the help of AI: Killers of Cádiz, a noir jazz record that I released in early 2026. I sent Jens a link to the music, and he was hugely impressed.

Jens Strüver: And since I'm always curious, I thought it would be great to try it out. My first attempts were to enter two of my favorite bands: Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd. And I can tell you, what came out was light years away from Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd. You would never have guessed it. So it's not that simple, as you sometimes read in interviews about AI.

Tim Ra: It's hard work to sound like others. It's even harder work to develop your own signature.

Jens Strüver: And then, over a year, sketches for these incredibly cinematic pieces were created.

II — The Universal Archive

Tim Ra: It's important to know: Jens is a music archivist and has an incredible understanding of music history, both in breadth and depth. You ask him for anything, and he goes to the record shelf and immediately pulls out the right record. It was similar when we were working on this music: For every sound and every idea from the AI, Jens immediately had the right composers in mind, which we could then incorporate into the prompts.

Jens Strüver: I listen to a lot of things from the fifties, currently Hollywood soundtracks and certain cool jazz pieces. Not Chet Baker, but rather the others who work with an orchestra. What is called Third Stream – by the way, the term comes from Gunther Schuller, who proclaimed this third stream between jazz and classical composition in 1957. We also move in this intermediate realm.

And Tim is enthusiastic about composers like Gustav Holst and Charles Ives. We're both really into that. And Bernard Herrmann, of course. He started with Orson Welles in 1941 — Citizen Kane was his very first film score — then he did the great Hitchcock films, Vertigo, Psycho, and ended with Scorsese's Taxi Driver – he died in 1975, the night after he finished the final recording session for it. One of the best, unsurpassed to this day. What it shouldn't be was also very clear at the same time: absolutely no Hans Zimmer sequencer-orchestra sauce.

Tim Ra: That was very clear.

Jens Strüver: Although Zimmer did start out ambitiously. But that was a long time ago. I just read an interview with Irmin Schmidt of CAN in The Wire in which he criticizes Mickey-Mousing in film scores. That is to say: you have a sad scene, and then music comes in that is even sadder. Or you have a funny scene, and then silly music is played along with it. You shouldn't approach film scoring like that. But unfortunately, that has become more and more common. Kosmische Kuriere stands for a paradigm shift.

Tim Ra: It's a return to older traditions. You've already mentioned Gustav Holst. We're consciously referencing »The Planets,« which he composed between 1914 and 1917, in the midst of the First World War. Old music that was also a precursor to the science fiction music of the fifties and sixties — and far beyond: John Williams drew on it for Star Wars — helping himself quite openly to the Mars movement. From Holst, a path leads to Bernard Herrmann and John Williams, and from there to our record. With our work, we follow such lines of tradition and build on them.

We're incorporating these influences, and AI is helping with that. Much like Jens’ massive record shelf and the countless stacks of records lying on the floor, AI is a universal archive that you access with prompts and use to create this assemblage of influences. That's how this record was made: drawing from our shared repository of knowledge, accessing this archive of humanity. That's how something new was created.

Jens Strüver: And I also have a thousand books. I don't even have a computer in my apartment. No internet either, of course. But you know what: when you have so many records and movies, you don't need a computer or the internet.

Tim Ra: At most, you need a robot to get things off the shelf.

Jens Strüver: I'm the robot. And the older I get, the harder it becomes.

Tim Ra: The more robotic the movements become.

Jens Strüver: The heavy metal section is all the way at the bottom, close to the floor. I'd like to listen to some Sunn O))) again, but I'd have to bend down. And then I think, oh no, I'd rather just stay up here.

III — Creativity goes on

Jens Strüver: The day before yesterday, my partner Susanne and I went to see Kruder & Dorfmeister, who have built a great career through samples and remixes. Afterward, we had the chance to talk to Richard Dorfmeister about AI. He said: Yes, of course, this tool is here now, and that can't be undone. I can imagine that he'll incorporate it into his work as well.

When you listen to our record and think about what that would have meant in the past – an arranger, how many musicians, the rehearsal times, the studio days – then I always say: This is our hundred-thousand-dollar record. For people with ideas, AI is actually great. At the same time, Tim and I continue to make handmade music, that's not mutually exclusive. I made a record with Stefan Mensger last year; for that, we only used guitars and bass. It's still fun to take things into your own hands.

But AI is also a great tool. Just like back then when the sampler came along, when the first hip-hop acts started sampling — or Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. I'm thinking of two records from 1982: Peter Gabriel's fourth album, which was called Security in the US, and Kate Bush's The Dreaming. Both of them used the Fairlight CMI back then, one of the first digital samplers ever. The thing cost as much as a detached house, and Peter Gabriel was one of the very first in England to own one. He recorded sounds, voices, and everyday noises and made music out of them, breaking glass, bricks. And Kate Bush took it even further and created a completely new world of sound.

Back then, many people also got worked up and said, »Can't you just make music yourself instead of taking something from a record?« But records were already being used as a compositional tool by composers like Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer, and John Cage. Today, that seems almost natural; sampling has long been recognized as an art form. And I believe we're experiencing a very similar moment with AI. If something entirely new arises from it, I think that's fine.

Tim Ra: Creativity goes on.

IV — Frustrating Days

Jens Strüver: Some things, like basslines for example, did come from Tim. With AI, not everything it offers is great either. There are things where you think: That's cool — and that's maybe quite good — and then it has to go because it sounds bad and is also stupid.

Tim Ra: It was primarily selection, mixing, and production work. What is usually the final step in production carries significantly more weight in working with AI because you're offered many things to work with further. What I know from working as a producer—spending hours with a musician on a bassline or a keyboard riff—happens faster now. Even if you have to prompt fifty times before something comes out of the machine, it's still an incredible acceleration. I used to spend weeks on string arrangements, but that's very quick now.

Jens Strüver: Some things went really fast. Others not at all.

Tim Ra: We worked on the record for a year, once a week, for about six hours.

Jens Strüver: There were also days when the results were simply catastrophic.

Tim Ra: Frustrating days.

Jens Strüver: You'd go home crying and kick the door in because it wasn't how you wanted it. And when it comes to programming and all that, I'm a total failure anyway.

V — Ohr, Pilz, Kosmische Kuriere

Tim Ra: The idea of naming the record Kosmische Kuriere came from you. Where does the term come from?

Jens Strüver: I'm a genuine teenage krautrock fan. I got my first Kraftwerk and Neu! records when I was ten or eleven, and it never let me go. Today, I also work with Wolfgang Seidel for Gil Schnitzler, Conrad Schnitzler's widow, and help ensure his work continues to be released – two releases have just come out on Bureau B again.

And then there was this Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser. A guy in a suit and tie—and at the same time completely immersed in the psychedelic zeitgeist. Before the record label story even began, in 1968 he co-organized the International Essen Song Days: around forty thousand visitors, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, The Fugs, Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream. It was the first major festival of the German counterculture, a founding moment. Afterward, in 1970, together with the schlager publisher Peter Meisel, he founded the Ohr label—that pairing alone is crazy: schlager industry money for the German avant-garde. Later came Pilz and finally Kosmische Musik or Die Kosmischen Kuriere. A huge portion of what we know today as Krautrock or Kosmische Musik was released on these labels: Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Embryo, Xhol, and Anima—they all released important early records there.

Then there's this incredible story with Timothy Leary. He had escaped from prison in California and was living in Swiss exile in the early seventies. In 1972, he met Ash Ra Tempel there, and together they recorded the album Seven Up back then. The title, of course, alludes to the soft drink — according to legend, cans of Seven-Up laced with LSD were involved in the recordings.

An incredible amount was recorded, often improvised for hours, especially in Dieter Dierks' studio. This initially resulted in regular albums. Later, however, Kaiser cut and released more and more collages and compilations from these session tapes. Together with his partner Gille Lettmann – his »star girl« – he developed his own cosmic mythology. There were the famous Kosmische Kuriere letters, records like Galactic Supermarket from the Cosmic Jokers or Lord Krishna of Goloka with Sergius Golowin, and at some point reality, the public persona, and the LSD trip blurred.

The crazy thing was: some of these records featured musicians who didn't even know their recordings had been used. Manuel Göttsching later recounted that in 1974, he went into a record store in Berlin, heard his own guitar playing, and realized a Cosmic Jokers record was on, one he knew nothing about. The dealer just said, »Manuel, that's your new record. You're even on the cover.« And he replied, »What?«

Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream was already in a legal dispute with Kaiser; Klaus Schulze and other musicians joined in. Within a short time, the whole system collapsed, the label was practically history by the mid-seventies. And then Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser completely disappeared from public life. If he were to reappear tomorrow, probably every music magazine would want to talk to him—probably even Der Spiegel.

Tim Ra: So he just disappeared?

Jens Strüver: Yes, completely. And I think those label names alone are great: Ohr, Pilz, Kosmische Kuriere. Fantastic. Of course, Kaiser made many mistakes. But without him, many of these records might never have been released. Back then, hardly anyone wanted to release Tangerine Dream, or Ash Ra Tempel, Embryo, or the first Klaus Schulze albums. Floh de Cologne was one of the first political rock bands in Germany, even before Ton Steine Scherben. He pushed all of that forward. And Kaiser was originally a journalist and wrote several books, Das Buch der neuen Pop-Musik being one of them. They are almost forgotten today, but if you are interested in the history of that era, it is really worth taking a look.

Tim Ra: Noted.

Jens Strüver: And somehow I thought: Even though our record has little to do with Krautrock, the connection to the Kosmische Kuriere fits.

Tim Ra: With our vision of an empathetic humanity, we refer to the cosmic tradition—albeit without the crashes.

Jens Strüver: Believe it or not: I bought a Kosmische Kuriere record at a used record store yesterday.

Tim Ra: Oh, really?

Jens Strüver: Yes, an Ash Ra Tempel. The original pressing. And then we haggled back and forth for fifteen minutes. He started at seventy euros, and I was like: thirty at most. Look at the state of it! And then we agreed on forty.

Tim Ra (reads from the press release): »A cosmic humanity that overcomes its limitations through empathy and love. A music that expands the human into the cosmic and finds its own humanity again in the cosmic.«

Jens Strüver: That says it all. I think we can listen to some music for now, right?

VI — Two Sides

Tim Ra: The second track on the record is called »Pulsar,« right after »Venus Matinee.« I think it was originally even called »Bolero.« You can still hear those Bolero influences.

Jens Strüver: You wouldn't believe how many bolero-like pieces there are. I have countless records from the fifties, from that exotica movement around Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Such rhythms and harmonies keep showing up. And a bolero isn't just a specific piece — like Ravel's famous Boléro from 1928 — but rather a musical form or a dance. Originally from Spain, in triple time, and then something entirely unique developed from it in Cuba, the slow Cuban bolero, which conquered all of Latin America from there. Two forms that bear the same name and yet are completely different.

The tracks on the first side of the album are all quite short, between two and a half and four minutes. That's almost single format. In that respect, »Pulsar« has something of a small, compact bolero to me.

Tim Ra: And we then developed that a bit further in the direction of Mariachi. What's exciting about the bolero is that it's already a product of cultural fusions: European, Arab-North African, and later Caribbean influences. We took that history further and combined it with Mexican elements. That's typical of our entire approach. We're less interested in musical purity than in coexistence, a cultural polyphony. We connect different traditions as if they had always belonged together.

Jens Strüver: I find our record sounds very familiar. On the other hand, it's not beholden to any trend or fashion, quite unlike the majority of currently emerging AI music. We're not twenty anymore either. Back then, when I was DJing in clubs, I might have oriented myself differently, who knows. But I have a few unreleased tracks of ours here, some of them also with AI, and they are much more club-oriented.

Tim Ra: We come from club music, from the Berlin club scene. But when we started making this record, it was clear that we were completely leaving that behind, that it simply no longer mattered. We've left this whole musical universe of Berlin clubs behind us—but we've taken the positive message of togetherness and overcoming walls with us and re-spelled it in a new kind of music, in a brighter and a darker version: there's an A-side and a B-side to the album.

Jens Strüver: Werner Dafeldecker is a passionate fan of the B-side.

Tim Ra: He did the mastering of the record.

Jens Strüver: Werner is a double bassist, comes from the Viennese jazz scene, co-founded the legendary Polwechsel ensemble, and has worked with artists like David Sylvian and Chet Baker – a true craftsman with an incredible ear. He always kept up with what I was doing because I also make music with Werner. And he was totally enthusiastic and said: He wants to master this album, he's really keen on it. I think he really made sure it sounds even better. For our sound, Werner is an important factor with his mastering and should not go unmentioned.

Tim Ra: No way.

Jens Strüver: I'm actually more of a fan of the second side, though I think the first one is great too, of course. That's our pop side, as I'd put it.

Tim Ra: Then let's dive into the darkness. There are two pieces that come into question, and these are also the ones that refer to Gustav Holst and Bernard Herrmann, the pioneers of sci-fi music.

Jens Strüver: »Nebula« is one of the most chill songs.

Tim Ra: Holst wrote a movement for each of the seven planets in »The Planets« — Earth is not included, and Pluto had not yet been discovered. With Holst, the music is designed to become darker and more mysterious the farther you get from the sun. The planetary system becomes increasingly inhospitable — and it was precisely these outer movements that became the blueprint for science fiction soundtracks decades later. The Uranus movement, »The Magician,« ultimately served as the inspiration for »Nebula,« among other things.

Jens Strüver: Exactly, among many other things! And the end of »Nebula« with the choir — I have to say: Holst already has that too. The Neptune movement ends with an invisible women's choir singing offstage as the door slowly closes until nothing more can be heard. This is considered the first fade-out in music history, 1918, long before studio technology. And for me, our choir at the end almost sounds like 1950s science fiction — like Herrmann's The Day the Earth Stood Still with its theremins — while the bass could be right at home on Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson too. You can bring together all sorts of different things, and that's why it's just fun.

VII — Life is Everywhere

Tim Ra: In contrast to Holst, for me life is boundless. It is a universal force that is at work everywhere in the universe. Even if there are no more humans, there will still be life. Even if we manage to destroy everything: Life goes on, it doesn't care at all about the nonsense we get up to. Life as a force that permeates everything: that is the positive message behind Kosmische Kuriere. That is also the punchline of our second video, »Wasser des Lebens,« which was shown at numerous film festivals as part of the Official Selection and received an honorary award in Porto.

I've decided to generate some videos for this music. »Generate« is exactly the right word, because they are AI videos. It's still a lot of work, but it's no longer the million-dollar budgets that would have been needed two or three years ago. Producing at this level has actually only become possible in recent months. The first clip, »Venus Matinee,« was released in early April and immediately went viral — viral by our standards, with around eighty thousand plays. And with an enthusiastic comment from Mark Batson, Beyoncé's producer, underneath. He now wants to collaborate with me.

Jens Strüver: It's starting to roll.

Tim Ra: The clip is reminiscent of Kubrick's 2001 or Chris Cunningham's All Is Full of Love. But it takes a different, feminist direction: It's about care, community, and the question of what a peaceful future could look like.

Jens Strüver: By the way, I think the cover is really cool. When I was handing out flyers around Berlin and went into a record store, I noticed: The new album by Kurt Dahlke, Pyrolator, also has people in spacesuits on the cover. We're apparently in good company. We definitely have to make that into a poster too; it's a very nice, very positive image.

Tim Ra: Yes, the cover is being extremely well received everywhere. We have now commissioned two vinyl copies, and when they are ordered, there will be further copies for four hundred euros each — but a maximum of seven in total. Hand-signed. This is the Lovelab concept: for selected works, there are tiny editions that have collector's value.

Jens Strüver: And for the regular fans, there are official bootlegs.

VIII — Today is a beginning

Jens Strüver: I also think it's wonderful that after twenty-five years of working together, we've finally released our debut album. I don't think anyone has ever taken that long for a debut album. Every snail gets an album out faster than we do.

Tim Ra: Honestly, unbelievable. And we still have our most important releases ahead of us. You played almost exclusively our music at our release event today.

Jens Strüver: Yes, a lot.

Tim Ra: I didn't even recognize our pieces. I was just wondering what amazing music this is!

Jens Strüver: It's amazing how good this is when you hear it again.

Tim Ra: Things are really happening in France.

Jens Strüver: Yes, there is a fan: Olivier Lehoux.

Tim Ra: A legend. His show airs on over thirty radio stations in France.

Jens Strüver: You should never underestimate something like that. Radiohead basically owe their career to an Israeli radio DJ. »Creep« completely flopped in England in 1992; the BBC found it too depressing. Then, a DJ at Israeli Army Radio played the song over and over, and it became a hit there—the band's very first trip abroad was to Israel, to screaming fans. Only after that did the rest of the world follow. It has to start somewhere.

Tim Ra: Exactly. For us, apparently, it's France. I also think it's become a very French record.

Jens Strüver: It's definitely music that's tailor-made for French films.

Tim Ra: Today is a beginning.

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The conversation took place on April 25, 2026, as part of the listening session for the release of »Kosmische Kuriere« at Lovelab Dreamspace.

»Kosmische Kuriere« was released on Lovelab on April 25, 2026 and can be heard in full on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. The videos »Venus Matinee« and »Wasser des Lebens« can be found on the album page. There are seven hand-signed copies of the vinyl edition — Editions. Don't want to miss the next dream? Join the Dream.