It's only fair to cut film scores some slack and judge them as non-canonical diversions. They're dependent on missing imagery, and often released mainly as advertisements for the films. But when a beloved band's name is on the cover, we can't help but feel as if we're being promised a little more-- that the release has an aesthetic motivation beyond the promotional. If Hans-Christian Schmid's film, Storm, has fans, then perhaps this score will be useful to them. But it will do little for any but the most adoringly blinkered Notwist fans. It's so thin and generic that selling it as a Notwist record feels faintly deceitful, as it could be by anybody, for any moody indie film.
Brevity is great when it's focused around moving themes or a sense of development, but the microtonal squalls and static melodies the Notwist work in here need more time to sink in, and are unproductive when portioned out over 11 tracks in under half an hour. Perhaps they suit the film wonderfully. This is the Notwist's second collaboration with Schmid, so something must click there. But out of context, it just sounds like they gathered up all the usual haunting-soundtrack materials around them-- glockenspiels and bowed xylophones, minimal pianos and strings, pressurized electronic loops-- and failed to do anything with them except idle in a low gear. Certainly nothing offends the ear, barring perhaps the shrill ridges of tone that compose the entirety of "Simon". But the score comes to its quick conclusion with a distinct sense of, "That's it?"
There's something bloodless about these pieces that dulls the impact of even time-proven soundtrack tricks. The stiff two-note piano figure on "Vilna Kosa Version" (featuring the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra) gestures toward unease without actually producing any, like a blank-faced actor holding a sign that says "anxious." The sonar pulse of "The Hague" eventually snaps into a canned trip-hop beat with grim inevitability. Flashes of potency-- the delicately tactile polyrhythms of "Sarajevo 1" and "2", and the restrained martial peals of "Storm 1"-- are just that, flashes. It's not bad music, mostly, but it's just like all the interstitial parts of a Notwist record knitted together, without any of their terrific songcraft to sustain them. Assuming that you have a limited record-buying budget (a fanciful notion that, presumably, bands selling albums nevertheless endorse), it's the definition of inessential.
