The Decibel Tolls

I’ve spent some of my downtime over this holiday weekend to start recording some of my vinyl onto Buhbee (the pet name for my Macbook), including this amazing, hard-to-find record (pressed on 180 gram!) Lana scooped up from ear X-tacy for my birthday a few months ago.

The freeform collective The Inner Space consisted of, but wasn’t limited to, West Germans Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, and American Malcolm Mooney. These gentlemen would, only a few months after recording the score to underground German film Agilok & Blubbo, form “The Can,” later to be known simply as Can. And everyone except for Mooney remained in the group until their split in 1979.

The Inner Space, as described in the soundtrack’s original liner notes (which were translated quite hastily):

“The Inner Space group is made up of specialised instrumentalists and excellent sound-engineers, led by the composer. Irmin Schmidt feels at home in all kinds of musical generes, electronics, aleatronics [sic?], classical, jazz and beat are all of equal interest to him. His point of view is that ‘music has to be good, everything else is the people’s choice.’ For the first time in German film history, there is a complete soundtrack of underground music. For the first time, there are electronics with a beat, or the other way around.”

Both Schmidt, the de facto conductor, and Czukay were music academics, so it’s understandable why soundtrack work would be appealing (notwithstanding the fact that Can would release albums with titles like Soundtracks and Monster Movie). And yet, it’s interesting to think that what they actually brewed with this prototype Can was decidedly punk – mostly sloppy, organic, splattered, vaguely psychedelic rock. At times, what The Inner Space did paralleled the sound of what The Velvet Underground was doing at that time in 1968 – a juxtaposition of delicate melody and abrasive noise, from half a world away and without any awareness of each other (as the krautrockers were an insular bunch). Both approaches come out to play on “Kamerasong.”

The Inner Space’s Agilok & Blubbo is certainly a creature of its own – an odd mix of rough and tumble fuzz guitar, embryonic garage space rock, dissonance, and a shit-ton of flute and didgeridoo. However, you can hear where the sonic palette of Can begins to take root in “Flop Pop” – precise rhythm, fluid bass, fluttering freak-outs, and that paradoxical, seamless mash-up of the extremely calculated with the loosey goosey. This is a fascinating listen.

I can’t speak for the movie Agilok & Blubbo itself, as I’ve not seen it and little is written about the film. But I understand it’s a sort of abstract political narrative, and the excellent boobage on the cover suggests there’s probably lots of free love to be had as well. The soundtrack evokes the idea that it’s probably an engrossing headfuck. Take a read of Julian Cope’s review at Head Heritage for more thoughts and some additional frames of reference.

This is absolutely necessary for any serious Can fan’s collection (known as Der Kanfan in German). If you like what you hear below, go visit Wah Wah. As an aside, folklore tells of Can’s ability to focus their energy so acutely during live shows that some audience members would vomit. Anybody have more info on this? Thought I’d ask while I have you around.

MP3 :::
The Inner Space – Flop Pop
The Inner Space – Kamerasong