MOVIE

Holger Czukay - Der Privatsinfoniker

1991 · 48 min ·

A portrait of the Cologne avant-garde composer and musician Holger Czukay, who called himself a “private symphonist”. In 1968, Czukay, a music college graduate and Stockhausen student, founded the band Can together with his fellow student Irmin Schmidt. In the following years, Can became one of the most innovative music groups of the time. In their music, which was mainly based on improvisation, parts influenced by free jazz mixed with rock passages, repetitive met catchy melodies and dissolved compositional influences from new music with the classical rock schemes. At the same time, Can's music was always groove-based and danceable despite all the complexity.