IRMIN SCHMIDT

— First review of this album —

This is a live album recording a solo show by Irmin Schmidt on piano plus some additional sounds (at least partly manually made but in parts also from recordings) in 2020. There are three tracks, the first of which, Klavierstück II, already appeared in 2018 on the 5 Klavierstücke album. It is extended to twice the length here without actually playing that much more; he just gives it more space and draws out the dynamics/crescendo more. The other two, Nocturne and Yonder, are new. The three tracks span 55 minutes. At the time this was recorded, Irmin was 82, and at the time I'm writing this he is 86 with nothing further released in the meantime, so this may well be his last album, but who knows?

The album follows the minimalist and meditative approach of 5 Klavierstücke. Occasionally there are long waiting times between notes, and when they come, there are often not many of them. The piano is apparently to some extent manipulated and detuned, so that in many places the music doesn't conform to classical tonality. There is the occasional rhythmic and percussive part to shake things up a bit. Nocturne has a water dripping sound going most of it. Yonder has the most interesting sound world adding quite something to the very skeletal piano chords.

So I tried to list some objective facts here, so that you know what kind of animal you're dealing with, but of course this doesn't give that much hint regarding the (emotional) quality of this. None of this follows any conventional path, so I can't say that this is optimistic or dark or light or heavy or whatever. Calm it is, of course, but then some bits are really not that calm. It creates an open atmosphere. There is some hesitation, something indefinite and also mysterious in this. I'd assume that at this age the transience of life is an important theme, and one could understand this music as between this side and beyond, or being about wondering what will come. There is certainly some intensity and life in this, but the music also leaves much space to the listener, who needs to concentrate to catch the subtleties, and may or may not be able to connect with this (I do).

Certainly this is more classical music than prog, but then as classical music very special and actually progressive if on the minimalist and meditative side. The album becomes stronger from beginning to end, and Yonder is actually very impressive, potentially also for the progressive electronic listener (although it isn't really electronic). What a way to end a career if it really is an end! This kind of thing is almost impossible to force into the rating system, but I like it enough and I appreciate the uniqueness of the approach and the depth so that I'll happily give it 4 stars. I will however warn you, be open minded for this and don't look for conventional music (even prog) elements. Also hands off if you need too many notes or volume in your music.

— First review of this album —

This is a collection of more recent (as of 2015) music from various soundtracks by Irmin Schmidt, and part of the "Filmmusik Anthology" series, and as such it may be called a sampler, however I put this in the regular albums category because as far as I can see, none of this has been released elsewhere (other than in the films), so it is 100% original music.

It is nice atmospheric music using Irmin's typical half-tonal and mysterious compository arsenal. Different from much earlier soundtrack work, this album doesn't use drums or percussion, all the rhythms are electronic, although there are many parts that come without beats. The only guest musician here is the jazz trumpeter Markus Stockhausen (son of the famous avantgarde composer), a very interesting musician whose contributions are very welcome but appear in only three tracks. The other ones are Schmidt solo pieces, which raises the suspicion that he often worked on a budget here. In fact the lack of other instrumental influences is what makes the album somewhat weaker, less lively, than some other of his work, as good as he himself is as a keyboarder and sound designer. Much of the music is slow and minimal and transparent, despite the often darker and mysterious atmospheres.

Listening through the album consciously there are some interesting and fascinating bits, but on the whole there isn't that much that sticks to the memory. I have complained already a few times about the fact that music that works for films doesn't necessarily have a strong life on its own, and putting together music from various films isn't the best recipe to produce cohesion either, even though this one doesn't contain very strong contrasts and is a rather smooth experience overall, with a rather lush soundscape with few edges. There's the odd hint at earlier material but not that many self citations (which Irmin generally is keen on using) on this one. On the positive side, this can be seen as missing link between Irmin's earlier work and the minimalist modern classical piano music he'd come up with on his 2018 and 2020 albums. Even though the more electronic approach here still sounds quite different from what was to come, the mood already goes some way into the meditative direction he'd then take.

If you like the sound world of Irmin's soundtracks in general you will like this one, too. It is worthwhile to listen to, also for fans of Progressive Electronics, and original enough in the context of that genre even if not so much in the context of Irmin's overall catalog; in any case It's not exactly a highlight of the series. 3.0 stars.

— First review of this album —

"5 Klavierstuecke" means five piano pieces. This is what it is. Nothing else than the solo piano is used here (although quite a bit uses it in nonstandard ways, particularly plucking the strings, maybe with some physical preparation/manipulation). This is very minimalist "modern" classical music, there is no rock at all on this one, and it has hardly anything in common with his catalog up to this point. Although given his classical education and maybe his age (turned 81 in 2018) this may not be such a big surprise.

The music on this album is very minimalist and meditative indeed. Silence and patience are needed to appreciate this. The music is mainly not atonal but not very melodic either; it clearly goes beyond the harmonic and melodic range of the 19th century, but it doesn't want to shock or demonstrate complexity or extravagance for the sake of it. There is the occasional rhythmic part in it, even percussive sounds are occasionally used (in fact the fourth piece has quite some movement to it), but silence and slow evolution are more important for this album. Much of the music has a coming from nowhere and going nowhere feel to it; as in meditation there here and now is all that counts.

Do I like this? Yes, but I am too rarely in the mood for this kind of music. I can't exactly tell how original this is in recent academic/"classical" music, but I know a bit and I suspect that this is pretty unique. Some 30 years ago I heard a piece by the Hungarian Karoly Binder (Kontinentspiel) that used a prepared piano in similar ways, but was far more restless and less meditative than this. Ultimately I'm delighted that this pioneer of prog in his eighties once more takes a new and artistically worthwhile direction. If it's your cup of tea obviously I have no idea. The description "Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection" doesn't fit it for sure so just from reading the rating labels I should give this three stars, but I round it up to four out of the joy of getting something this fresh and original from Irmin in 2018, 50 years after Can took off!

Irmin continues his collaboration with Kumo alias Jono Podmore here. As opposed to the earlier release Masters of Confusion, this one is not 100% instrumental but comes with guest vocals by Paul J. Fredericks on three tracks. Fredericks adds a nice leftfield element with his uncoventional singing, sometimes strongly electronically manipulated. This is most prominent on Kick on the Floods, which in my view would've worked as a single even though it wasn't released as one. On the title track vocals are credited but you have to look hard for them. Raketenstadt once more delivers some catchiness, with the vocals interacting nicely with the rhythmic electronics.

This album has just such an elegant cool electronic sound, using the rich possibilities for sampling and manipulation that were available in the 2000s. Irmin and Kumo just went more "all in" here with the electronic experimentation than on Masters of Confusion, and also the electronic rhythms swing and vibrate some more. At the same time there is still the piano and the occasional trumpet, making for a fascinating contrast. On top of this, there is great variety in the tracks, from the straight but mysterious Kick on the Floods over the sharp bodily Raketenstadt, the aptly named relaxed Drifting Days Crime Pays, the experimental out there sound collage Umbilicus Clear harking back to Irmin's education as avantgarde composer. The title track comes closest to the strongly accented rhythms of Masters of Confusion, Meteor Infected is a creative space electronic track, and the Etrurian Waltz enriches Irmin's love for the piano waltz with some surprising sounds, and provides the crescendo toward the end that this album deserves.

Creatively this is probably the peak of Irmin's work. It may not appeal to some because of the techno impact, but for me it's strong and impressive. 4.7 stars. Some versions come with a DVD of a sound and film installation that was on display in London's Barbican. This is pretty long and experimental and meant for ambience (I think it was on a Barbican wall while everyone would go along with their business, it wasn't an autonomous performance), meaning that you may not find it worthwhile to go through the whole length of this with full concentration, but it is great at what it is, a nice and fascinating bonus.

— First review of this album —

This is a big pile of stuff, collecting the majority of Irmin's original Filmmusik Vol. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Rote Erde plus the single "Roll On Euphrates" from "Musk at Dusk". If I don't miss anything, there are also around 5 tracks that are not on any original album (but may be on other samplers). These are not overly spectacular and not a major reason to buy this. As should be expected with more than 216 minutes of soundtrack music, it's a bit hit and miss, and the order does not necessarily follow a "musical logic" (particularly it doesn't start off very strongly) ), but I generally agree with what has been selected from the original albums for inclusion and exclusion, so you here have all the material you need to appreciate these works. I'm not generally keen on reviewing samplers but I review this one because it's the major way to actually get hold of the earlier film music albums that I believe otherwise are no longer available. I give this three stars because that's just fair given the amount of second class material, but remember it's very very long and there is certainly a lot of 4 and even 5 stars material to discover here (see reviews of original albums for more information).

— First review of this album —

This album takes a quite different direction from most of Irmin's catalogue up to now. The Toy Planet album is probably the closest out of those he had done so far. Instead of the usual guest musicians, this one is a collaboration with Kumo alias Jono Podmore, who does electronics here, and the album has a far more electronic character than the previous ones. It is a very rhythm oriented album, and Kumo's technoid rhythms will take some getting used to for prog listeners who are used to real drummers and the likes of Jaki Liebezeit and Trilok Gurtu on Irmin's previous albums.

The electronic rhythms go through almost all the album dominantly, some of them are straight 4/4, but there are some more subtle ones thrown in. Fledermenschen is particularly fascinating in this respect with some polyrhythmic experiments, and is actually my favourite track. The second strong element on most tracks is Irmin's piano, sometimes played in a sharp rhythmic staccato manner. Elsewhere, in Las Blumas del Buho the dramatic piano takes its inspiration from Latin America; this one reminds me of some of the longer piano driven pieces on earlier albums. And then there is synthesizer and electronic sounds. In fact, despite the lack of other instruments, the sound world created here is pretty rich, there are also more lyrical and some mysterious moments, and there's something new to discover in every track, even though there is the usual recycling of the odd motif from earlier albums, most clearly in Gentle into that Night. I wonder whether Irmin intends this to be something of his trademark as this goes through more or less his whole catalogue.

All in all there is quite some strong material here and I find the overall approach quite fascinating. The smooth sound and the routine approach of the two professional composers may distract a bit from how much is hidden here, as one can listen fairly easily through the whole album superficially, sticking to the rhythmic surface, in which case it may not make that much of an impression. Anyway, this is a very original album and worth exploring. 4.0 stars.

Gormenghast is an opera that was commissioned by the Wuppertaler Bühnen, and premiered at Opera House Wuppertal in 1998. The music was composed by Irmin Schmidt, the libretto was written by Duncan Fallowell. A lot of information is on the opera's website gormenghastopera.com, where we can also read that it combines "romance, comedy and futurism into an adventure of epic strangeness peopled by unforgettable characters." As I am fairly exclusively interested in the music and not so much in the story (which is not necessarily the story's fault), I won't comment more on that.

Ex-Can keyboarder Irmin Schmidt is a studied conductor and composer, and I'm actually surprised that this is the only work of this kind he did. This one combines classically composed orchestra parts and opera singing with modern elements. Apart from conducting the orchestra, Irmin himself her mainly shows his electronic side. There is hardly any piano, but some of the sound harks back to his electronic Toy Planet album. Electronic percussion, informed by the sampling technology of the day, also is a strong element here. There are contributions of Can's Jaki Liebezeit and Michael Karoli, but it's not much, and even hard to pin down. It's really vocals, electronics, and orchestra in the first place. Whereas I like the creativity of the rhythm programming, it comes over as a bit robotic (it features about half of the run time), and I wouldn't have complained about more Jaki, but here we go. There are some hints at the use of electronic rhythms in his following works with Kumo.

You may think about opera style singing whatever you want, but I think the combination with Irmin's electronic sounds works quite well here. Irmin certainly knows what he is doing, and he is in a rather unique position to come up with something like a "rock and classic synthesis", which has of course also been tried out by other prog musicians, and is something that some prog listeners appreciate well. The composition level here is high and goes well beyond the 19th century aesthetic that characterises some such work. Also Irmin can put together a well working melody, and does this, let's say, occasionally also here.

This album is no exception from Irmin's tendency to cite himself; the 1991 Impossible Holidays album had as closing track already something like a pre-overture to this one, and there is the Toy Planet connection, but by and large this is a unique work not only in his catalogue. It is hard to rate this for a prog rock site. As an opera with quickly changing themes it is for sure not easy listening, and it would be interesting to have an opera buff's opinion on this, but I will say that I'm satisfied enough with it for four stars, and I can imagine quite a number of prog fans open for this kind of experiment who will appreciate this.

Impossible Holidays is basically Musk at Dusk Vol. II. It's an album of songs sung by Irmin himself and his deep non-singers voice more concerned with atmosphere than with hitting the right notes. It has once more a good number of memorable melodies, instrumental brilliance and vivid rhythms driven by Jaki Liebezeit on drums and Steve Shehan's percussion, and Irmin's original dreamy sound world characterised by his faible for traditional dances such as waltz and tango, the lush sound with his occasionally dramatic but often understated piano, with a strong addition of the bandoneon. I don't think the album is quite up with Musk at Dusk, as the standard of the singing is below the earlier album in places, and there are some lengths. The closing track Gormenghast Drift is an instrumental that I like a lot and that works well ending this album, however it is all too similar to some of his soundtrack instrumental work (Irmin is one of those artists who are strikingly original and individual compared with others, however he can be accused of often using the same idea more than once - which of course might be seen as legitimate for soundtracks).

Ultimately though the highlights and the fact that I am a fan of his general approach and most of the musicians here carry this clearly above the three stars and it ends up with 3.8. Also, there won't be another regular album for nine years and he won't follow up on the concept of Musk at Dusk and Impossible Holidays, so we have only these two albums of this kind, and for sure what's on offer there is enough for two good albums.

This one is in my view Irmin Schmidt's weakest album (the good thing of which is obviously that from here onward things get better again). It is mostly easy listening, which of course in the world of prog reviewers isn't a very good thing, and it suffers most from the typical soundtracks issue that what works well in a film doesn't necessarily have a good life on its own. The signature piece and single of this one is another German TV series title track, the opener "Zu Nah Dran" of "Reporter", sung by the lead actress Renan Demirkan, who is a great actress indeed but not remotely as exciting as a singer. It is an OK tune though, no complaints there. The problem is that the rest of the album is rather uninteresting. Instrumental, often based on the same theme as other material from the same soundtrack (four different ones are represented here), and then the musicians play around a bit, a sound is dropped here and there, and that's pretty much it. OK, it's still Trilok Gurtu and Michael Karoli, and also the others are good (Jaki Liebezeit only appears on Zu Nah Dran and doesn't show much there), and the whole thing is fair enough as a listen, but still, I get the impression that much less effort was invested here than in the best volumes of the series, both composition- and execution-wise. Almost all of this is still on the big Filmmusik Anthology 1, 2 & 3 sampler, but there's much better stuff on that one, too. 2.3 stars.

And finally Irmin releases an album full of actual songs, sung by his own voice! That's quite something, I mean, for those who like his voice, which for sure takes some getting used to. The guy has studied composition and conducting, so he should be well aware what kind of thing is expected of a serious professional singer. But what he does is something completely different. His voice is deep and full, and he doesn't care that much for hitting the notes, but for sure this voice has something. Well, he is more Tom Waits than Pavarotti. You can picture him like the old guy in the corner who has seen a lot and gives you his view on it, and life has left its traces. It's at the same time understated but also warm and can be emotional and even erotic.

And then the album is full of melodies and a number of them stays in your ears, starting with the cute piano melody of the single (and quite good at that) "Roll On Euphrates", which actually was written for another TV show, despite having announced this as an autonomous non-soundtrack album in my last review, sorry! The dreamy Great Escape also makes quite a lasting impression, the melody here solemn and slow, something for the small hours, contrasting with the nervous drums and percussion by Can's great Jaki Liebezeit and grandmaster Trilok Gurtu. The Child in History is another one of Irmin's great dynamic waltzes that run through many of his albums. In fact I could say that this is very great, at more than 8 minutes something for the prog lover, except that you may think there's enough stuff of this kind already on the Filmmusik albums, although the singing adds a particular flavour to this one. Irmin likes dance rhythms, and the album is started off by a tango, Cliff Into Silence, including bandoneon; Villa Wunderbar has a cha-cha type rhythm, I believe, even though not being an expert at that. I'm maybe not a fan of every single composition ("Love"?), but the instrumentalists are great throughout; there's Michael Karoli again besides Jaki and Trilok, and the occasional horn and sax as we know it from Irmin.

I hadn't listened to this for quite some time before writing this review and thought it would come out around 3.5 stars, but it is so original overall, has more memorable melodies than I thought (I must have put some of them on the wrong album in my memory), very enjoyable instrumental performances (hell, I could listen to any album that has Jaki drumming on it *or* Trilok Gurtu *or* Michael Karoli just for their performances), and I actually love the singing (not everyone will) so much that I eventually rate it 4.2 despite a somewhat limited prog coefficient (you could call it pretty arty art pop maybe).