Released a month before the composer’s 89th birthday, Irmin Schmidt‘s Requiem is a meditative work reflecting on loss and commemoration, as well as nature and the environment. The slowly unfolding composition, divided into two parts, is intended for deep listening. Schmidt gathered natural sounds such as rushing water and the calls of birds, frogs, and insects, hearing music within them, and decided to incorporate them into his own music. The beginning of Requiem features abstract piano notes laid over a bed of chirps and croaks, largely undisturbed, until some strange thrusting movements emerge after five minutes, resembling some sort of vehicle like a tractor manipulated into a rhythm. Dripping water periodically works its way into the rhythm as well, nearly…