ROTE ERDE - ORIGINALMUSIK ZUR FERNSEHSERIE

Here is a further soundtrack offering by former Can-keyboarder Irmin Schmidt. His next album will be an autonomous non-soundtrack, but will only follow four years later. The previous Filmmusik albums were collections of selected music from different soundtracks, but this one has all music of the TV series Rote Erde. This series was a major success in Germany, and probably for this reason it was decided to release the soundtrack as full album. As a consequence, unfortunately, most music here cannot stand quite as convincing on its own as the exciting and adventurous Filmmusik 2, 3 & 4. Also, the music is mostly melodic, nicely consumable, and somewhat repetitive, with the main theme used in various ways (as makes sense for a soundtrack). In fact, as a soundtrack, this worked very well, and furthermore the main theme (Titelmusik) is stunningly beautiful (if not exactly progressive, despite the somewhat nonstandard chord progression), so chances are this sold quite a bit better than Irmin's earlier collections; let's not forget all of this came at a time when progressive music wasn't exactly loved by the media.

For the (prog) music lover who wants to listen to this independently of the TV series, however, this is a weaker offering, and Irmin probably agrees with this, as only three tracks found its way on the Filmmusik Anthology 1, 2 & 3 sampler that is probably the best way of buying Irmin's earlier soundtracks these days (the previous Filmmusik albums are almost fully represented there). I adore the main theme, and the album is for sure a good listen and evokes a peaceful melancholic atmosphere, but for 44 minutes it doesn't have that much excitement on offer. Note the presence of Soft Machine's John Marshall on drums, although he doesn't do that much. Michael Karoli is also present again, as are Irmin's usual collaborators Schoof, Dudek, and Ferrara (whose accordion often takes centre stage here). 2.9 stars.