ecstasy |

Stanley Kubrick launched Nietzsche into space in 1968 when he appropriated Richard Strauss’ introductory “Sunrise” theme from “Also sprach Zarathustra.” Deodato’s version of “Zarathustra,” from 1972, gave it a cool, rumbling electric piano machine sheen, and filled it full of moody, twilit solos. (It makes for wonderful counterpoint in relation to the astronaut stories of Barry Maltzberg and J.G. Ballard.) Third in this series is 1977’s “I Feel Love.” Giorgio Moroder first cites the Strauss/Deodato matrix between, roughly, 0:10 and 0:34, and it’s the key to the trax’s associative and aspirational power. Additionally, like so much of the most memorable output of Kraftwerk, the melody seems to hotwired to a vehicle’s engine and chassis. But it’s not a bicycle, car, or train, or even a rocket; it’s closer to an interstellar dildo or orbital fucking machine, and the conjunction of stars, pistons, and multiple orgasms is both controlled and cosmic. In the Patrick Cowley megamix, the trax is once again opened to something like soloing: sequenced squirts and squiggles that punctuate the endless motoric pulsing. Moroder, apparently, didn’t care for it. But Nietzsche might have approved of the effort to accentuate the singularities of his ecstatic starchildren.