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Lewian View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Irmin Schmidt for Eclectic
    Posted: November 06 2015 at 19:25
Irmin Schmidt (Germany) for Eclectic

Irmin Schmidt is best known as founder and keyboarder of Can. He was a member of the band from the beginning to their end, 1968-1979, including their short-lived reunion in 1986. Apart from the work with Can he has a fairly comprehensive oeuvre of his own with changing collaborators. Born 29 May 1937, he "received a formal musical education and studied composition, piano, conducting and music ethnology. Amongst others his teachers were Karlheinz Stockhausen and Ligeti.
Between 1962 and 1969 he conducted numerous orchestras including his own compositions. During this period he also composed music for various film and theatre productions." (http://www.irminschmidt.com/)
During and after his time with Can he went on writing and producing numerous soundtracks, which are assembled on a number of albums (currently available on two (3+2 CD) "Anthologies" and two more CDs that cover exclusively one film each); for end 2015 another CD of up to now unreleased collected soundtracks is announced as part of a 13 CD monster set covering most of his work. He also has six non-soundtrack CDs with various collaborators.
 
His music is something like the textbook example of eclectic prog. Some of his music is experimental avantgarde, in some the Can influence is very strong (with Jaki Liebezeit and Michael Karoli making regular appearances on his albums and some other ex Can-members showing up once in a while), but he also tried to write some melodic popsongs with some odd twists. 
His first album after Can (Toy Planet) is electronic prog space music with the unusual addition of a saxophone played by Bruno Spoerri. In 1987 and 1991 he released "Musk at Dusk" and "Impossible Holidays", which are more song-oriented with some mediterranean melodic influences. Both of these are quite original though, particularly because of Irmin's unique voice (as introduced on Can's great mysterious "Come Sta La Luna" from the "Soon Over Babaluma" album), and there are also sophisticated instrumental parts in some of the songs. With "Gormenghast" he has an opera to his name, not a rock opera but rather a proper (contemporary) classical opera with some prog rock and electronic influences. In later years he produced a CD "Masters of Confusion" and a CD/DVD set "Axolotl Eyes" together with Kumo, who does electronics and percussion. Both of these are heavy on electronic rhythms with even some appeal to the dancefloor (one may call some of this "Techno"), but they also have fascinating atmospheric soundscapes. Masters of Confusion has quite a bit of good piano, some of which is played in a very percussive manner. The DVD of Axolotl Eyes documents an avantgarde sound installation in London's Barbican beyond any conventional sound structure.

The soundtracks are a mixed bag, too, with the odd melodic piano piece, some waltz, some very experimental improvisations, the odd rather beautiful melody (Rote Erde), a few songs with vocals that have a conventional structure but always some strange twisted elements, some pieces that are very atmospheric and even haunting, some rather minimalist offerings and from time to time some things that should probably not have been separated from their films. Oh, and there is also "Kamasutra", which is a 1969 soundtrack that has surfaced pretty recently and can actually be seen as a proto-Can pre-Monster Movie project.

I am not in any doubt that much of Irmin's music should be classified as prog (albeit not as mainstream prog) and belongs on this website, but my job is not exactly helped by the fact that the rights holders of his music are not the most generous when it comes to tolerating some free music on the web. I have seen several things popping up and being removed. In any case, Irmin's website
http://www.irminschmidt.com/
can play a mixed selection of his music.

There's also this:
https://soundcloud.com/muterecords/sets/irmin-schmidt-villa-wunderbar
Unfortunately this is not the most suitable selection for the prog fan; at least it's quite eclectic. Listen to no. 2-4-5-6, and you get an idea of the range of things this man has done.

Kamasutra is here:


And here's a Can-like one with Liebezeit, Karoli and Rosco Gee from a 1980 soundtrack

Hope that's enough...




Edited by Lewian - November 07 2015 at 07:37
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 06 2015 at 19:32
I add one more because I just found this and love it - although on my Filmmusik vol. 3 original LP it's longer and even better:


Edited by Lewian - November 06 2015 at 19:33
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 06 2015 at 22:17
Of the Can solo stuff, I have only checked out Holger Czukay's work. Thanks for reminding me to check out Schmidt as well. Really nice OPClap
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 07 2015 at 07:28
There's quite a bit of output of ex-Can members. Czukay probably has the highest profile (and rightly so) but Schmidt is quite a heavyweight to omit. To my surprise I found Cyclopean on PA, which is a one-off 2011 project by Schmidt, Liebezeit (both at the time aged 74 I think) and their collaborators Burnt Friedman and Jono Padmore. At least for Can fans it's very rewarding. Hardly anything Liebezeit has done otherwise is on PA, but he has done loads of things, some of which are quite good (the prog classification is far more problematic for most of this work than for Schmidt and Czukay, though). Michael Karoli has a very strange and unique album with Polly Eltes that has some Reggae elements. Damo Suzuki has loads of collaborations, some of which can be found on PA. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 07 2015 at 07:34
I've thought about including the two Inner Space albums in Can's discography as both of them basically feature the full Can line-up. I must've forgot.
Creating a separate page for Irmin is another way of getting the two Inner Space releases on the archives, but overall, at least from what I've heard, I'd say that he belongs in Krautrock. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 07 2015 at 07:44
Originally posted by Guldbamsen Guldbamsen wrote:

I've thought about including the two Inner Space albums in Can's discography as both of them basically feature the full Can line-up. I must've forgot.
Creating a separate page for Irmin is another way of getting the two Inner Space releases on the archives, but overall, at least from what I've heard, I'd say that he belongs in Krautrock. 

I'm generally not so keen on classifying things by nationality; "Kraut", how does that sound? OK, I admit that if I try hard I can see some things that could be called common Kraut elements. Schmidt has used some of them at times (he's about as eclectic as eclectic gets so you should expect that), but if you look at all the six non-soundtrack solo albums Toy Planet - Musk at Dusk - Impossible Holidays - Gormenghast - Masters of Confusion - Axolotl Eyes, genuine "Kraut elements" are pretty scarce and I'd think his game is quite different.
Anyway, my main mission is to have him listed anywhere in PA, so if the powers that be think it's Kraut, so be it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 07 2015 at 07:48
I'm not the powers that be, don't worryLOL
Merely an opinion based on my, granted somewhat lacking, exposure to his oevre. 
I don't put too much stock in stickers either......even if I tell myself that I know what Krautrock is when I hear it.


Edited by Guldbamsen - November 07 2015 at 08:19
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 19 2016 at 13:29
I may do some more to push this at some point but for the moment I just up the thread in a random fashion to see whether something new happens...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 28 2016 at 07:07
Up again! Any takers?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 28 2016 at 08:36
I'm not familiar with much of Irmin Schmidt's solo material (will be checking out Kamasutra later on today or tomorrow), but I really enjoyed the parts of Filmmusik Vol. 2 that I've heard. I think he belongs here on PA. Also, very nice lengthy introduction essay you wrote there, that is admired. Wink


Edited by ALotOfBottle - December 28 2016 at 08:36
Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden - step out of the space provided.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 31 2016 at 07:35
Some more currently working links:



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 27 2017 at 08:36
Hello?
Anybody there?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 27 2017 at 20:46
Sorry for the delayed response. 

We've discussed Irmin Schmidt and don't really see him as fitting into eclectic prog. His output is no doubt eclectic, but it seems to mostly lie in the contemporary classical/avant-garde realm of the progressive umbrella; we don't feel that there's enough of a consistent grounding in rock to put him in a bonafide prog rock subgenre, like eclectic. With that in mind, there has been talk of evaluating him for either progressive electronic or prog-related. However, I feel that the former wouldn't quite capture the nuance of his extensive non-electronic material, but the latter is always an option, and is at the discretion of the admins.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 27 2017 at 20:54
I'm not sure he ever actually got mentioned at PSIKE. Sorry but i have been to busy to deal with much as of late but there are definately some P.E. moments but overall with my limited exposure i'm leaning for prog related so far. Maybe you could drop him by the PSIKE Team discussion thread - Progressive Rock Music Forum - Page 80 and someone else can check him out more thoroughly

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 27 2017 at 22:30
^ I've passed the word along. Thumbs Up
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