Lost in silence
Attention spans have shifted, and it’s not hard to see why. Content overloaded and beset on all sides by new things to pique our interests, humanity, by and large, has become a collection of ADHD-riddled madmen, ravenously shoving the next big thing down our cavernous gullets. In such a world there is little time for the long game, the slow atmospheric pieces that turn gears in the minds of critics and few others. Pieces like 5 Klavierstücke by Irmin Schmidt of Can, while engaging to some, ultimately fall flat for the majority of society, and with lengthy pieces and slow progressions, it’s easy to see why.
Inherently there’s little wrong with these pieces. Conceptually and in practice, they play out well enough; the performances are generally compelling or at least expertly delivered, but the plodding pace of the record prevents it from ever maximizing its potential. Often times the point of records like this is to cultivate an atmosphere. Take, for instance, “Klavierstuck III” which seeks to craft an air of tension and fear around the track. Listening to the notes and patterns in which they are played, it is easy to see what they are going for. Perhaps if this was scoring a film, where its fleeting sharp notes and long silences could be allowed to breathe and jolt the audience awake, it would be more effective. As it stands, it is simply a long track filled with silence, only occasionally interrupted by shocks of sound.
Much of the album proceeds in a similar way; each track is largely composed of silences, and while one can argue that “music is the silence in between the notes,” in this case there is simply too much of it. Only “Klavierstuck IV” comes across as compelling, a persistent drum moves the middle section of the track forward, imparting a sense of urgency that is notably lacking from the rest of the record. Sadly, this is not enough to save the whole project, which ends up floating away, untethered from its own minimalism.
Aiming for something is good. In music, it is often necessary to push your own boundaries to keep things fresh and exciting. However certain attempts to do so will often fall flat as experimentation gives way to naïveté. Unfortunately for listeners of Irmin Schmidt’s latest album, they’re likely to fall asleep halfway through the record, or walk away and do something else. There’s nothing worth disliking on this album, there’s simply nothing worth thinking about at all.
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