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BaldFriede View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: New Irmin Schmidt album
    Posted: February 26 2008 at 05:44
Irmin Schmidt, keyboarder of Can, will release a new album together with breakbeat musician Kumo on Apr 14th 2008. The title of the album is "Axolotl Eyes".

Here the information from the official homepage of Irmin Schmidt:

Irmin Schmidt, founder of Can, the experimental rock group whose music has inspired hundreds of popular acts over the last 30 years from Talking Heads and Public Image Ltd. to LCD Sound System and Kasabian, has once again teamed up with breakbeat pioneer Kumo on Axolotl Eyes.

The duo originally got together in 1997 when Psychomat recording artist Kumo was drafted in by Schmidt to work on his operatic version of Gormenghast as a co-producer and programmer. As a result of that collaboration, the duo started work on Masters of Confusion, their 2001 debut LP. Kumo has since been appointed Professor of Popular Music at the Köln Musikhochschule (Cologne University of Music) where he runs regular practical workshops ranging from dub to music business, composing for film to house music.

Schmidt and Kumo's latest album of electronic experimentalism features Kumo's shimmering grooves, subterranean bass, theremin and violin providing the perfect foil for Schmidt's peerless and enduringly adventurous playing. Unlike their 2001 debut - which was largely put together by extrapolating snatches of music featured in Schmidt's opera Gormenghast - Axolotl Eyes is very much a studio recording.

With several tracks featuring Ian Dixon on trumpet and vocalist Paul J Fredericks, Axolotl Eyes also marks a return to the extended improvisation followed by painstaking editing methods pioneered by Can.
"I went off to a small studio in Cologne and created the seeds that we could develop together," Kumo says. "We then distilled the ensuing hours of material into seven songs."

Opener Kick On The Floods rapidly evolves into a churning sea of ghostly, filmic melancholy lightly shaded by menace, while Drifting Days, Crime Pays kicks in with a melody that could grace any classic detective series underpinned by subtle atmospherics. A classic Schmidt & Kumo moment.
The mysterious and dense Umbilicus Clear was inspired by sounds from outer space (www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio) and Raketenstadt melds the vocals of Paul J Fredericks with industrial strength synths, drifting melodic fragments and trumpeter Dixon summoning the spirit of Dizzy Gillespie.

Despite the fact that Schmidt says he intends to take it easy this year (after completing a ballet, 6 film soundtracks and Axolotl Eyes in 2007) Schmidt & Kumo will be performing selected dates around Europe in 2008.

As a bonus, the studio album is accompanied by a 5.1 surround sound DVD of the sound installation Flies, Guys and Choirs, first conceived for London's Barbican Centre in 2001. The work combines surreally treated images from nature with subtle, quietly forceful environmental music.




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Erpland316 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 26 2008 at 12:34
Interesting album cover...I cant wait to check it out
"Science is all metaphor"-Timothy Leary

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 29 2008 at 12:42
Love the cover art: sorta like Captain Beefheart meets John and Yoko.
 
I haven't heard any of Irmin's solo material since his earliest movie soundtrack work but this sounds intriguing...
 
By the way how old is this guy now anyway? Nearing 70 years, I'm guesing. Nice to see he's still out there on the cutting edge...
 
back to lurker mode...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 29 2008 at 13:02
Irmin Schmidt was born May 29th 1937, so he will be 71 this year


A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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