Inspired by the success of Ash Ra Tempel's retrospective collection, The Private Tapes, Ulbrich decided to mine his solo archives as well, and the result is this 2-CD assortment. Mostly in bite-sized chunks of a minute or two, the collection covers a wide array of material, from minimal electronic experimentations to straightforward guitar-based tracks. There are 50 tracks in all, each seamlessly fading into the next, like a series of short stories. Though many of the segments seem like undeveloped ideas, there is a charm in the simplicity of it. Nicely detailed liner notes tell the history behind selected tracks, with lots of interesting photos. Whereas The Private Tapes serves as a time capsule for the seventies, Kurzmusiken is from 1985 forward. Though Ulbrich says he chose tracks for musical character over sound quality, the quality is generally solid. Trying to describe individual tracks could fill pages. Everything from guitar to vintage synths and even banjo is featured. The style ranges from quirky catchy tuneful songs like "Moabit," which runs right into "Mystisch," a textural, unstructured, atmospheric piece of space music. This then runs into the aforementioned banjo in "Passant," a light playful tune. These three tracks to open the second disc give a good example of the wide range of material presented, all with a certain panache that make this thoroughly fun to sit back and experience.
- Phil Derby / Exposé Magazine

As a member of Agitation Free and Ash Ra Tempel, Lutz Ulbrich has been at the centre of the Kraut Rock experience, but his solo output has been very limited, largely comprising two hard-to-get albums first released twenty years ago and only recently seeing the light of day on CD.But with contemporaries Klaus Schulze and even the less than prolific Manuel Gottsching putting him to shame in the CD release stakes, Lutz has searched around for some other archive material and come up with a series of short pieces, some only just exceeding 30 seconds, others just about reaching conventional song length at 3, 4 or 5 minutes. That all these pieces are sequenced together to create a continuous listening experience does little to hide their bitty nature, and since most were created on a Portastudio their technical sophistication isn't too high either.There are occasional touches of elegance though - little drum patterns that sound like early Cluster, synthy sweeps with some of the grandeur of classic Ashra, and guitar (or banjo) pieces with Eastern or Oriental touches. There are bum notes as well - many of these are just demo pieces, though some are for theatre works or connected with the folk orchestra 17 Hippies - and at best, as on "Arpeggiator", most of the pieces only vaguely hint at their potential as finished Ashra or techno-pop tracks. On the second CD, "Kaukasus" sounds like a theme for a news programme, while "Rite Reise" is a cheesy foxtrot and "Zombies" is a funky disco tune.There's an interesting booklet though featuring photos of Chris Franke before he had a beard and of Lutz's associates Nico and John Cale, and this makes the album more worthwhile as a historical document. In musical terms though, you'd find it interesting mostly if you had an extremely deep interest in Agitation Free and Ash Ra Tempel. - Emix