Krautrock Soundtracks: From Herzog to Porn

Because krautrock is often instrumental and atmospheric, it is not surprising that much of the music has been used for or even composed for soundtracks. Both Can and Tangerine Dream scored multiple second-rate German TV programs (Can even issued an LP with those "Soundtracks"), which I haven't watched yet. What I have watched are Werner Herzog's movies with the music of Popol Vuh and with the one and only Klaus Kinski -- "Nosferatu," "Fitzcarraldo," "Aguirre" -- but I will have to re-watch them and pay more attention to the soundtrack. The new field of Sound Studies asks us to pay attention to sounds that are not music as well, so that could be interesting too. Here are the opening credits to Herzog's 1979 remake of F.W. Murnau's 1922 vampire classic with music by Popol Vuh, one of the underappreciated German rock bands of the 70s:



Another movie with a krautrock soundtrack I just watched is Lasse Braun's "Body Love" with music by synthesizer genius Klaus Schulze. Lasse Braun was a pseudonym of the Italian director Alberto Ferro, who took on a Swedish name to make state-of-the-art porn movies in the 1970s (this is the time before the change to video technology in the 80s decried as artistic decline in the movie "Boogie Nights" and of course long before the age of the Internet). I have to admit that despite a few well-done and "captivating" scenes, I found the movie rather boring (although it apparently played at the Cannes festival) and thought Schulze's music works better without images of people engaging in hardcore sex. Here's a nudity-free scene with some music by Schulze halfway in -- it's the setting-up of a sex scene but ends before the flesh fest begins. The building of suspense is actually quite interesting, with some synthesizer sounds by Schulze mixed with female moans that foreshadow what's to "come."



The movie is available in its entirety on the Internet but I recommend simply listening to Schulze's soundtrack -- released on LP in 1977. Another, later, Schulze LP, "Body Love 2," is actually mislabeled as it contains no music from the film.

Update

It's been a long time since my last entry -- the simple reason being that the semester descended upon me and kept me busy with classes unrelated to my research and all those other things professors do -- evaluate grant proposals, serve on search committees, advise students, etc. The good news is that my next semester is a research semester, meaning that I won't be teaching but devoting a lot of time to my research and even spending three months in Germany. So I can promise to keep this blog active and running in the early part of 2013 -- it will be my research diary for those months I hope to spend on and with Krautrock.

Some of the groups that I want to spend more time with:

Popol Vuh -- and their connection to the movies of Werner Herzog

Faust -- avantgarde DIY from Hamburg

Amon Düül I and II -- and the connections between commune politics and Krautrock

More soon!