FILMMUSIK

Irmin Schmidt is well known as keyboarder of Can, but he also has a quite comprehensive discography on its own. I have the resolution to add his albums one by one and to write short reviews on the fly as far as I have time.

From his beginnings in the 1960s Irmin has done film and TV soundtracks, together with Can and also on his own. His first solo album is a collection of at the time recent soundtracks ("Filmmusik") covering the films Im Herzen des Hurricans, Messer im Kopf, und Der Tote Bin Ich. The album is fully instrumental. I like the album, however much of this album follows a soundtrack logic and supports the film in the first place, without the original intention to have a life on its own. The music is atmospheric and good to hear, but on its own not very memorable and mostly not very adventurous. This should become better on his later Filmmusik albums. Some of the tracks are quite repetitive (which is typical for non-autonomous soundtrack music), however the three scores are quite different from each other, so Irmin already shows the broad range of his composition, styles, and influences here.

Im Herzen des Hurrican is enjoyable if not all too exciting melodic rock music, and we get Can's Michael Karoli on guitar playing two great soli. In Der Tote Bin Ich Irmin plays with Swiss saxophonist Bruno Spoerri; Irmin's keyboard work is very minimalist and Spoerri plays dreamy solos. Atmosphere-wise these are the tracks I like most. Das Messer im Kopf is done by Irmin on its own and shows some typical chord sequences that would turn out to be quite characteristic in his later work.

Most of the album is these days available on the Filmmusik Anthology 1, 2, and 3 sampler.

As I wrote a good album but probably, even though Irmin's first, not the best starting point to discover him, as later work (including soundtracks) would stand better on its own without the films.