Soundtracks was the second Can album but was made up of contributions to various film soundtracks and combines Mooney and Suzuki so it's not really an album as such but they got away with it. I bought this in about 96 - probably after Tago Mago and probably with a view to hearing Mother Sky. The CD booklet is sparse and just has some pictures of Can "in action" in the middle: One of them mucking about on the beach, chatting outside a country house, Damo wailing, and doing an art installation. Very nice.
Musically it's a bit of a mixed bag but you could probably replace the work mixed with "a bit shit" but then this is a comparative shitness - it's just a bit too varied and incoherent to be appreciated in any way apart from varied and incoherent.
For me, the opener (Deadlock) is pretty bad - all wailing guitars and moaning. Tango Whiskeyman works better but is something of a novelty piece with good drumming. The revisitation of Deadlock is frankly quite annoying and could have been left off. Then a couple of really good contrasting tracks. Don't Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone is fantastic and subtle but I always think Mooney should have sung it - I imagine that's how he felt at the time. Then Soul Desert which Mooney does sing on but close your eyes and it could be Suzuki. The glory of Can is in full effect on both, and them being around the 3 minute mark it avoids the meandering problems that bother me about them sometimes. At their best they sound like they do on Soul Desert: Other worldly but with vague routes within things you know about. There's a story about a guy auditioning for a new Funk band and being asked to play the bassline from a James Brown track - most people would improvise around the simple structure but he just played it non stop for 30 minutes or so. That to me is the essence of Can, no fear over finding a riff and repeating it for a very long period of time.
Which brings us to Mother Sky, almost the corner stone of the record (see also the live version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oyKKahQoDY where it emphasises the wig out element of the track to a largely bored audience). It is magnificent in every way, a 15 minute non-stop fury through the mind. It starts off as it means to go on with a heavy bass line and twinkly guitar. Then at about the 3 minute mark there's a huge crash and clink and it shifts to the drums and bass. One of the few times when aat 15 minutes it feels a little short. Cope writes in KRS how he imagined it was used really well in the film (Deep End). This reminds me of an interview with Quentin Tarantino who lamented the use of soundtracks in films - citing that he knew of Kung Fu films that used the theme from Shaft better than it was used in Shaft. Well, having watched Deep End this week, I can confirm that it is used in a largely incidental fashion. Stick it over the car chase in Bullit or something and you've got a chicken dinner. It all breaks down after about 7 minutes then gets back into it.
Then it ends with She Brings The Rain which is a bit throwaway, with not much to say for itself. It's a bit of a weird one - Mother Sky is so awesome that nothing else can quite match it's level and there's enough nonsense on the album that reinforces that. It would seem that on the original sleeve it says that Soundtracks is the second album but not album no. 2. That's a pretty incredible thing to write in the sleeve notes and leaves us all in fearful anticipation of the mighty record to come...
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