Irmin Schmidt &Kumo, Axolotl Eyes
To the highest degree live Irmin Schmidt as the grumpy uncle-looking keyboard player from krautrock legends, Tin. Of course, of whole the members of that venerable institution it's in all probability Holger Czukay and Jaki Leibzeit world Health Organization possess been most visible in flight the flag for Cologne’s finest. Just Schmidt hasn’t been slack off. He’s worked on many photographic film projects and even written an opera based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. And today Mud puppy Eyes is the followup to his other collaboration with metal drum 'n' bass technician, Jono Podmore aka Jumo: Masters Of Confusion.
Masters…was essentially the record of the duo's live work, afterward tinkered with in the studio. Axolotl…is a whole studio concoction. Its roots lie in the polyrhythmic experiments detailed in the album's liner notes by Jumo. Peradventure 1 rationality wherefore this album represents roughly of the charles Herbert Best work by Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt for about meter is that his muse needs to be tickled by people world Health Organization understand beat. Can's Leibzeit as we totally know was a funky, motorik powerhpouse. Jumo is a much more squiggly, digital beast, simply along with contributions from trumpeter swan Ian Dixon and vocaliser, Paul J Fredericks, he in truth gels with Schmidt’s wavelet pianoforte and close to very subtle electronics.
Opener Quetch On The Floods could actually come from Can’s Presently All over Babaluma days, with its eastern shuffle and whispered vocals. This hypnotic if oddly-metered coming is the full general rule here, broken only by the freeform twittering and warbling of Navel Top. It's a winning, heating blend that finally arrives at Schmidt's terrifically skewed piano on Etrurian Valse.
Only if on Raketenstradt do the twin fall land. The track's Miles Davis funk and growling guitars seems as well away the cuff at times, though it does get marvelously messy about halfway through.
Paired with a Videodisk of the duo's facility work: Flies, Guys and Choirs, Ambystoma mexicanum Eyes is a welcome and accessible retrovert for the grumpy uncle. And yes, you can dance to it…
