Can, do

CAN

Anthology

Rite Time

(Spoon/Mute)

The Wire

by Simon Reynolds

     With Can (see also: Davis, Miles), there's a paradoxical

sense that there's nothing left to say, and yet everything

left to say. It seems like we've only scratched the surface

of this music, and yet it's so hard to get critical purchase

on Can's slippery magic.

The idea of a CAN-thology seems faintly sacriligous, so

before anything else, let me iterate the bleedin' obvious:

you NEED the original albums, yes, ALL of them.  That proviso

aside, and despite the inevitable dissension over highpoints

absent and lowlights mystifyingly included, this double CD is

a useful crash-course for the uninitiated and impoverished.

Early Can--examples here include 'Father Cannot Yell' and the

awesome 'Mother Sky'--is cosmic garage punk, an acid-singed

mantra-minimalism heavily indebted to the Velvet Underground.

At this point, Can also went in for noise-swarms like "Soup"

and voodoo catacombs like "Augmn" that recall the Floyd at

their most AMM-aleatory or even the Godz' atavistic sound-

daubs.

By 'Tago Mago' and 'Ege Bamyasi', the Liebezeit/Czukay

rhythm section has completed intensive studies in James

Brownian motion, and the Can vibe shifts from motorik throb

to fitful phatback shuffle.  Hence the simmering pressure-

cooker tension of "Mushroom", the succulent pulse-matrix of

"One More Night". Magnificent, but these albums merely

prepare the hallowed ground for the prehensile, octopoid,

Shiva-limbed ethno-funkadelia of 'Future Days' (1973), 'Soon

Over Babaluma' (1974) and 'Landed' (1975): the Gaia trilogy.

On tracks like 'Dizzy Dizzy', 'Moonshake' and 'Future Days',

Can are making music so tender, tactful, tactile and

telepathic it seems to become your bloodstream.

At this exalted point, Can were making the ultimate

body'n'soul music, the incarnation of their Zen-tinged creed

of mystic-materialism: flow motion, pantheistic awe, melt-

your-psychic-defences and take-the-world-in-a-love-embrace,

every day is Mother Earth's Day etc.  After "Landed", Can's

cosmic libido starts to wane and droop with the later Virgin

albums; what was implicit becomes literalised in the New Age

affirmation of "Don't Say No". Can disintegrated; a decade-

long diaspora ensued, of interesting but not exactly

satisfying solo projects (which are next in line in Mute's

reissue/anthology program).

Finally, 1989's "Rite Time": no, there aren't too many

examples of reformations that resurrect the original magic,

but--unlike Television, Buzzcocks et al--Can's comeback is

excellent, if hardly earthshattering.  Reunited with original

vocalist Malcolm Mooney (whose parched drivel sounds like a

blend of Alex from A.R. Kane, Shaun Ryder and a punch-drunk

Ray Charles), Can are still peddling their Zen-funk credo:

the 'Rite Time' is Here and Now, if only we could all see

'Like A New Child', et al.  The latter is the best track, and

possibly their finest since 'Babaluma''s "Chain

Reaction/Quantum Physics": a vast, sprawling, panoramic

groovescape, pivoting around Irmin Schmidt's Zawinul-esque

synth-helixes and Liebezeit's roaming drums, and punctuated

by elephantine blasts of guitarfuzz. Other gems: the moon-

skank of "The Withoutlaw Man", the shuffle-funk of "Movin'

Right Along", where Mooney's dubbed up vocal darts amidst

Karoli's wah-wah scumbles and plangent Afro-bluesy licks.

'Rite Time' was recorded in Nice, which may explain its sun-

baked, easy-rolling nonchalance. Can are just about the only

band I know that can make jauntiness and lighthearted whimsy

not just tolerable, but aesthetically compelling and even

existensially admirable.  But then the miraculous is this

band's metier.

CAN

LANDED/FLOW MOTION/UNLIMITED EDITION/SAW DELIGHT/CAN

Spoon/Mute

Melody Maker

by Simon Reynolds

It's generally deemed that Can's post-United Artists 

work was less distinguished than pinnacles like "Tago Mago",  

"Soon Over Babaluma" and "Future Days". Certainly, something 

of their telepathic internal combustion was depleted after their switch from two-track to 16-tracks recording.  But those later albums, now CD-reissued by Mute, are far from barren of enchantment.

     Indeed, 'Landed' (1975) is a bona fide masterpiece and 

no mistake. From the bluesy, galactic garage rock of "Full 

Moon On The Highway" (with its weird chorus, like the vocal 

has been dilated and distended by an expert glassblower) 

through the musky Middle Eastern tapestry "Half Past One", to 

the cosmic skank of "Hunters And Collectors", the quartet are 

in feverishly fecund form. On "Vernal Equinox" and the 19 

minute epic "Unfinished" Can return to the unmapped territory of "Quantum Physics" and "Peking O", an omniverse where the normal laws of sound no longer apply.  "Unfinished" is a flux 

of unravelling forms that coalesce into fleeting focus before 

deliquescing again; a sort of animated mosaic, or abstract 

expressionist cartoon.

     "Flow Motion" (1976) is more mainstream, the work of a 

Can who were less self-sufficient, operating with one ear cocked to the new sounds of the day (reggae, disco, even boogie). "I Want More" was their one pop hit - if not a case of Can selling their soul, at least of them mortgaging it. But it's such a joyous disco novelty, it's hard to begrudge them. The main vein of the album is rhapsodic, oceanic funk not far from what was doing John Martyn at the time ("Solid 

Air", "One World") ;  "...And More" and "Smoke" are tribal 

funk mantras that anticipate 23 Skidoo and Byrne & Eno.

Later that year, Can also released "Unlimited Edition", 

treasury of tracks from Can's gilded era (1968-75) that never 

made it onto the albums. It's all superlative stuff, with 

special honours going to "Cutaway": 19 minutes of Can at 

their most combustively spontaneous, going through myriad 

phases, before eventually devolving into a primordial soup of 

DNA strands, helixes and lattices.

     "Saw Delight" (1977) was where the rot began to set in.  

Too often, Can cross the thin line between wandering and 

meandering, nomadism and onanism. New member Rosko Gee's 

vocal's on "Call Me" is awfully prog-rock. The 15 minute 

"Animal Waves" is formula Can (a pan-global, sensurround 

groove, synths that wax and wane, simmering percussion, an 

exotic, sampled Arabic vocal) that never ignites into magic. 

"Don't Say No" bubbles and froths jauntily enough, but its 

lyric of mystical affirmation must have jarred badly with the 

negationist mood of punk.  

"Can" (1978) was their last studio album (until 1989's "Rite Time") and their first without bassist Holger Czukay (the group's heartbeat).  It's not a bad swansong. "All Gates Open" mismatches hokey harmonic with cosmic jaccuzzi synth-whorls, over a crisp-and-spry James Brown pulse. "Sodom" is yet another epic of iridiscent 

amorphousness, but must have sounded mighty flatulent next to 

the anorexic, angular demystification rock of the day (Gang  

Of Four etc). Bizarrely enough, "Aspectacle" - with it boogie guitar, in-the-pocket funk groove, swoogly noises and Michael Karoli's stoned, nonsense vocals - sounds uncannily like Happy Mondays. Even on their last legs, Can were as ahead of their time as ever.

CAN 

entry in Spin Guide to Alternative Music (1995)
[grades adjusted retrospectively to reflect true assessment]

by Simon Reynolds

Monster Movie (1969; Spoon/Mute 1990) [8]

Can Delay 68 (rec.1968/9, released 1981; Spoon/Mute 1990) [6]

Soundtracks (1970; Spoon/Mute 1990) [8]

Tago Mago (1971; Spoon/Mute 1990) [10]

Ege Bamyasi (1972; Spoon/Mute 1990) [8]

Future Days (1973; Spoon/Mute 1990) [10]

Soon Over Babaluma (1974; Spoon/Mute 1990) [10]

Landed (1975; Spoon/Mute 1990) [8]

Unlimited Edition (1976; Spoon/Mute 1990) [8]

Flow Motion (1976; Spoon/Mute 1990) [6]

Saw Delight (1977; Spoon/Mute 1990) [2]

Out of Reach (Peters Int'l) [1]

Can (1979; Spoon/Mute 1990) [6]

Rite Time (1989; Spoon/Mute 1994) [7]

Cannibalism 1 (compilation; Spoon/Mute 1990) [7]

Cannibalism 2 (Spoon/Mute 1992) [7]

Anthology -- 25 Years (Spoon/Mute 1994) [8]

Cannibalism 3 (Spoon/Mute 1994) [7]

As creators of a unique sound-world of wanderlust and wonderment, Can are up there with Hendrix and Miles Davis. Each phase of Can's meandering career has opened up vast vistas of fertile terrain for subsequent bands to colonise and cultivate: avant-funk (Talking Heads, PiL, Cabaret Voltaire), trance-rock (Loop, f/i, Cul de Sac), lo-fi (Pavement, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282) and post-rock (Bark Psychosis, Laika).  As well inspiring solitary eccentrics from Brian Eno to Mark E. Smith to '90s ambient guru Mixmaster Morris, Can also uncannily anticipated many moves made by entire genres of contemporary 'sampladelic' music, such as ethno-techno, jungle and ambient hip hop. Basically, when it comes to psychedelic dance music, those crafty Krauts wrote the goddamn book.

     Can's core members--bassist Holger Czukay, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, drummer Jaki Liebezeit and guitarist Michael Karoli--came from avant-garde and improv-jazz backgrounds; Czukay and Schmidt had both studied with Stockhausen.  But instead of exploring aleatory noise or jerky time signatures, Can discovered--through The Velvet Underground, and later via James Brown--the Zen-power of repetition and restriction. Minimalism and mantra-ism were hallmarks of the Krautrock aesthetic, but what set Can apart from their peers was their fervent embrace of groove.  Like Miles' early '70s albums ("On The Corner", "Dark Magus" etc), Can's best work fuses 'black' funk with 'white' neo-psych freakitude.  Recording in their own studio in a Cologne castle, the band adopted a jam- and-chop methodology similar to that used by Miles and his producer Teo Macero: improvise for hours, then edit the best bits into coherent tracks. As the band's Macero figure, Czukay worked miracles with a handful of mikes and two-track recording.  Can's proto-ambient spatiality actually diminished when they went to 16 track in the mid-70s!

   Early Can is a sort of kosmik garage-punk that combines the metronomic drive of the Velvets with the abstraction of Barrett-era Pink Floyd: over the throbbing Liebezeit & Czukay rhythm-engine, singer Malcolm Mooney (and later his successor Damo Suzuki) yowl acid-visionary drivel or onomatopeiac nonsense.  Highlights of this 1968-69 period include "Father Cannot Yell", "Yoo Doo Right" and the awesome 15 minute rumble of "Mother Sky".

     Named after a sorcerer, *Tago Mago* contains Can's most disorientating, shamanic work. Torn between two impulses- James Brownian motion and post-Floyd chromatic flux--the double album ranges from the polyrhythmic roil of "Mushroom" and "Oh Yeah", to "Augmn"'s dub-reverberant catacombs, to the fractal sound-daubings and scat-gibberish of "Peking O".  A meisterwerk.

     After the tense angst-funk of *Ege Bamyasi*, with its sharply etched guitar and crisp beats, Can's music literally seems to blossom with *Future Days* and *Soon Over Babaluma* (two glorious summers in a row, after the rotten weather that shadowed *Bamyasi*, is the band's own explanation).  Can's octopus-limbed ethnofunkadelia is as succulently sensuous and touchy-feely prehensile as a rain forest or coral reef.  At once light-hearted and urgent-like-your-life's-breath, the music embodies the band's Zen creed of mystic-materialism: pantheistic awe, take the world in a love embrace, every day is Mother Earth's Day, etc. So *Future Days*'s title track is a shimmering aural vision of Paradise Regained, while the side-long "Bel Air" is as beatific as a sea otter basking off the coast of British Columbia. On *Babaluma*, the balmy, aromatic "Come Sta La Luna" sways to an undulant, off-kilter tango rhythm, but it's Side Two's sequence of "Chain Reaction"/"Quantum Physics" that is Can's absolute zenith. "Chain" is all flow-motion effervescence and iridescence, sonic hydraulics as ear-baffling as Escher's aquaducts and weirs are eye-confounding; "Quantum Physics" is a chaos theorem, funk translated into abstruse, polydimensional equations.  Czukay's percussive/melodic bass and Liebezeit's Morse Code drum resemble the mandible-clicking telecommunication of the insect world.

     Can's late '70s albums replay the *Future/Babaluma* phase's mystic and musical motifs, but with steadily diminishing returns and a rising whimsy-quotient.  *Landed* is their last great album. Its highlight is the protozoan amorphousness of "Unfinished", 13 minutes of aural paella (looks a mess, tastes great).  Other fine collage-tracks and 'musaics', like the 19 minute "Cutaway", appear on *Unlimited Edition*--a grab-bag of unreleased goodies recorded between 1968 and '75, ranging from exquisite addenda to *Babaluma* like "Ibis", to items from the Ethnological Forgery Series (affectionate pastiches of genres like trad jazz).  Back in the studio, Can's muse was ailing.  The stylistic puree got lumpy with *Flow Motion*, as reggae and blues entered the mixing bowl.  *Saw Delight* is a prog-rock frightmare, probably thanks (no thanks) to newbies Rosko Gee and Reebop Kwaku Baah (ex-Traffic), who gradually displaced the disenchanted Czukay. *Out of Reach* was so uninspired that it's never been reissued. The band rallied slightly for the sprightly swan-song *Can*, parts of which bizarrely pre-empt Happy Mondays' guttersnipe disco.  Ten years later, the band re-united for the surprisingly excellent, if scarcely earthshattering (the world had caught up with them by then) *Rite Time*; the highpoint, "Like A New Child", is possibly Can's most gorgeous groovescape since *Babaluma*.

     During the decade-long diaspora between break-up and brief reunion, the Can clan flowed everywhichway; *Cannibalism 3*, a sampler of their solo work and collaborations, will help you navigate the delta of stimulating, if seldom wholly satisfying, music. Czukay's six solo albums and sundry link-ups (with David Sylvian, Jah Wobble et al) are probably the most compelling; *Movies*, with its pioneering shortwave-sample of Iranian pop on "Persian Love", is something of a classic.  Schmidt's soundtrack work (reissued on the triple-CD *Anthology*) is always interesting, if lacking Can's rhythmic intensity. As for introductions to Can itself, *Anthology--25 Years* is the most up-to-date selection.  It's a comprehensive crash- course for the cash-restricted, that inevitably skips Can's longer--and wilder--excursions.                                              

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