In the latest issue of MOJO, on sale now, we speak to Can’s sonic architect Irmin Schmidt about his life in the musical vanguard. In this extended hymn to the genius of Schmidt and his bandmates, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore discusses the huge impact the krautrock masters had on him personally, and the direction music would travel…
“While The Beatles were topping the 1964 charts with I Want to Hold Your Hand Irmin Schmidt, along with Holger Czukay (né Schüring), were heads down in radical music studies at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne under the tutelage of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, and Henri Pousseur. This was a good four years before the two budding maestros would form Can (née Inner Space) with the idea of incorporating aspects of experimental music concepts gleaned from academia such as the minimalism/maximalism of drone aesthetics, the morphing phenomena of repetition, etc., with avant-garde jazz and the bloody-mindedness of dropping sound grenades of pure noise in their compositions.
“Paul McCartney, in tandem to the interest of these German lads, would find a distinct intrigue in the musique concrète of French composers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry as well as the sound world of English electronic music composer Delia Derbyshire and the iconoclastic compositions of Englishman Cornelius Cardew. There are photos of Macca attending lectures by Berio in the ’60s (Berio would arrange Beatles tunes for a 1968 recording of avant-garde arias sung by his wife, the renowned Cathy Berberian) and his inspirations would manifest themselves as an element in The Beatles’ brilliant Tomorrow Never Knows and fully and sensationally in their remarkable Revolution #9, a piece constructed entirely from random and artful tape machine editing.
Of course, The Beatles turned on the entire universe, primarily due to their pop wizardry, while Can barely blipped beyond the universities of Deutschland. Frank Zappa heralded Edgard Varèse in the ’60s and the Velvet Underground’s John Cale intimately referenced drone composer pioneer La Monte Young in that band’s sonic strangeness. As a devout listener to each of these three bands in the early ’70s with my pre-teen antennae on vibratory alert I never thought about them as being anything more than groups making, for the most part, idiosyncratic music in the context of what would be considered “proper” rock music. The Beatles were by far the straightest, but Revolution #9 (my favourite Beatles track I must say) would forever win the most outside-the-margins award for sheer experimentation on any contemporary Rock record (at least until I experienced the brain incineration of LA Blues on the Stooges’ 1970 Fun House LP!) By the time punk explodes, particularly via Suicide’s 1977 debut LP, followed by The Normal’s T.V.O.D. and Throbbing Gristle’s United single, there really was no turning back, Beatles or no Beatles.
The Velvet Underground were a bit easier for me to decode seeing as how they exemplified a certain gritty aesthetic born of New York City, an environment I had some connection to, but Can I could only wonder about. Particularly when actually finding one of their LPs in a bargain bin in a local department store’s record and tape department in 1972 as a 14-year-old. I bought it because it was all I could afford. Economics played a big role in my nascent record round-up. Elektra Records couldn’t give away the first Stooges LP so subsequently there would be multiple “cut out” copies stuck in the Woolworth’s bin for mere pennies. I would buy that LP because, well, any band naming themselves the Stooges for God’s sake had to be out of their minds. They certainly looked like trouble with their scowling sneering mugs gracing the cover. Can’s Ege Bamyasi would be released in 1972 and, as with the Stooges, the fact that any group would name themselves such a thing – in this case a banal object found in your granny’s kitchen cupboard, as well as featuring an actual can (of okra!) on the cover – I had to hear it. And it was super cheap!
Some older hipsters had been whispering about “krautrock” here and there and I gleaned that Can and Amon Düül II (whose Wolf City LP could also be found in the budget racks) were as close as I could get to procuring and experiencing this music. Amon Düül II were OK I suppose, but Can’s Ege Bamyasi changed my receptors altogether with its at once laid-back drone groove interspersed by jarring clangs and shouts (and recordings of running water!) I would stare at the back cover displaying circus performers performing live with the band, all long hair and super weird and exotic thinking to myself – What the hell was going on there in Germany?
I extolled Can as a major influence from day one in Sonic Youth. The back-and-forth harmonic guitar riffing on I Don’t Want to Push It from our initial 1982 release was in direct reference to what I had gleaned on Ege Bamyasi. Fifteen years hence Sonic Youth would be asked to re-mix a Can song for Sacrilege, a compilation released on Can’s own label, Spoon (facilitated then by Mute) even though Can was not a working group anymore. Spoon began in 1980 founded and run by Irmin Schmidt’s wife Hildegarde and their daughter Sandra. We decided to not just re-mix the song we were assigned (which happened to be the tune, Spoon, the final track on Ege Bamyasi) but to totally alter the actual track by slowing it waaay down, a minimal exercise which morphed the song into something else entirely. I was afraid this may have been a bit, ahem, sacrilegious, but we received word from Irmin that he and the others loved it.
My first meeting with Irmin happened at a music fest in Belgium around 2014 and I related all of the above anecdotes of being a teenager in thrall to his group to him which I think possibly amused, if not bemused, him. We stayed in touch and after I relocated to London, I connected with him and his family, and we would enjoy dim sum together in Chinatown from time to time. In 2016, a year after Irmin received the Order Of Arts And Letters in France I had been invited to present music in residence at the Louvre in Paris and on one of these evenings I invited Irmin to join me in an extended improvisation, he on prepared piano and me on prepared electric guitar (accompanied by a screening of the artist James Nares’ film, STREET).
While I realised Irmin to be more focused on creating compositional pieces, certainly in the context of soundtracking films (something he had been active in since the ’60s), his sensibility in regard to improvisation was patient and keen and very open. It was an incredible experience for me to be in duo with this gentleman whose work had informed me as much as, say, David Bowie, Tom Verlaine, and Lou Reed, let alone John Cage, La Monte Young, and Glenn Branca.
The following April of 2017 Irmin proposed that I lead an ensemble at London’s Barbican playing the music of Can on a bill where he himself would conduct the London Symphony Orchestra playing his compositions, from both the Can catalogue and his solo oeuvre. He suggested I enlist Can’s first vocalist Malcolm Mooney, which I did, as well as Can percussionist Jaki Liebezeit. Seeing as how so much of the wonder and joy I gleaned from Can’s music came from the rhythmic concept of Jaki I was beyond thrilled. Unfortunately, Jaki passed away earlier that January. As there was no soul on this planet to fill Jaki’s shoes, I employed Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley to play in tandem with the British-Italian percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Also on board were bassist Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine), guitarist James Sedwards (who had been playing, along with Deb, in my London group), avant keyboardist Pat Thomas, and electronic musician Tom Relleen.
We performed primarily Malcolm Mooney-era Can music (Outside My Door, Father Cannot Yell, Thief, Deadly Doris, Mother Sky, Yoo Doo Right) to a bit of polarization from the audience. Many wished we could be more slavish in replicating the ineffable stonk and slinkiness of early Can while many others seemingly embraced the sonic joy and devotion we delivered in our studious undertaking. No matter the critical ears in the room it was an incredible moment for me to be delegated by Irmin Schmidt to arrange and guide this group into a place where, if my 14-year-old self could ever project into the future from 1972 and foresee that I’d someday become an actual member of Can (if just for one night) I would think it to be the ultimate fantasy projection.
It could only be equal to McCartney inviting me to play a bit of noise guitar action on the forthcoming 60-year anniversary celebration of Revolution #9. But before that happens (!) I will never forget my Can-mania dream coming true through the great musical heart that is Irmin Schmidt.
Thurston Moore, 2026, London.
“Can is in me. I’m part of it…”
Get the latest issue of MOJO to read our career-spanning interview with Can’s sonic conductor, and keeping of their flame, Irmin Schmidt in full. More info and to order a copy HERE!
