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Can (band)

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Can was an experimental rock group founded in Germany in 1968. Describing themselves as an "anarchist community," and constructing their music largely through improvisation and edit, they had only occasional commercial success, but exerted a huge influence on subsequent rock and electronic music. They are generally held to be the finest of the original Krautrock bands, and are among the most important experimental artists in recent music history.

Contents

Band years (1968-1979)

Can formed in Cologne in 1968 as "Inner Space," comprising bass guitarist Holger Czukay, keyboard player Irmin Schmidt (both music teachers who had studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen), guitarist Michael Karoli (a pupil of Czukay), and jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit, along with original member David Johnson.

In the autumn of 1968, they enlisted the creative, highly rhythmic, but often confrontational American vocalist Malcolm Mooney, with whom they released the album Monster Movie in 1969. His bizarre and (often apparently psychotic) ranting stood in contrast to the stark minimalism of the music, which was influenced particularly by the Velvet Underground, James Brown, and the Psychedelic movement. As with those influences, repetition was stressed on bass and drums, particularly on the 20-minute "Yoo Doo Right," which had been edited down from a six-hour improvisation. This song, which features Mooney yelling what appear to be the highlights from a love letter, has been covered in abbreviated form by The Geraldine Fibbers, Thin White Rope, Masaki Batoh and others.

Mooney returned to America soon afterwards (on the advice of a psychiatrist, according to legend) and was replaced by the less overtly challenging Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller found busking outside a cafe. The band's first record with Suzuki was Soundtracks (1970). Suzuki was a very different sort of singer from Mooney: his multi-lingual (he claimed to sing in "the language of the Stone Age"), often inscrutable vocal style added the missing ingredient to a set of playful pop songs. Also included were two songs recorded with Mooney, including an unexpected foray into melodic jazz, "She Brings the Rain."

The next few years saw Can release their most acclaimed works, which arguably did as much to define the Krautrock genre as those of any other group. While their earlier recordings tended to be loosely based on traditional song structures, on their mid-career albums the band reverted to an extremely fluid improvisational style. Tago Mago (1971) is a groundbreaking, influential and deeply unconventional record, based on intensely rhythmic jazz-inspired drumming, improvised guitar and keyboard soloing (frequently intertwining each other), extensive tape edits, and Suzuki's idiosyncratic vocalisms. The rhythm section's work on Tago Mago has been especially praised: One critic writes that much of the album is based on "long improvisations built around hypnotic rhythm patterns" [link]; another writes that "'Halleluwah' finds them "pounding out a monster trance/funk beat" [link].

The cover of Can's debut Monster Movie (1969) depicts a faceless Galactus. The album features the 20-minute "Yoo Doo Right", which had been edited down from a six-hour improvisation.
Enlarge
The cover of Can's debut Monster Movie (1969) depicts a faceless Galactus. The album features the 20-minute "Yoo Doo Right", which had been edited down from a six-hour improvisation.

Tago Mago was followed by Ege Bamyasi (1972), a more accessible but still avant-garde record which featured the catchy "Vitamin C" and the Top 40 German hit "Spoon." Next was Future Days (1973), an unassuming but quietly complex record which represents an early example of ambient music and is perhaps the band's most critically successful record. Also included on this album was the refreshingly unexpected pop song "Moonshake". The names of these albums represent the band members' interest in world music, referring to other cultures' languages and traditions.

Suzuki left in 1973 to become a Jehovah's Witness, and the vocals were taken over by Karoli and Schmidt. Both were competent but not especially memorable singers, especially when compared to Mooney's demented energy or Suzuki's freewheeling charm. In live performance, though, the music grew in intensity without a vocal center, and the band maintained their ability to collectively improvise with or without central themes for hours at a time, resulting in a rather great body of performances.

Soon Over Babaluma from 1974 continued in the ambient style of Future Days, though regaining some of the abrasive edge of Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi. In 1975 Can signed to Virgin Records in the UK and EMI/Harvest in Germany. The albums Landed (1975), Flow Motion (1976), Saw Delight (1977) and Out of Reach (1978), saw Can moving towards a somewhat more conventional style. Accordingly, the disco single "I Want More" from Flow Motion became their only hit record outside of Germany.

In 1977 Can added former Traffic bassist Rosko Gee and percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah to the existing personnel, pushing Holger Czukay, who is now perhaps the best-known ex-member, to the fringes of the group's activity; in fact he played only the wave table, a table consisting of shortwave radios, morse code keys, tape recorders and other sundry objects. Czukay left in late 1977 and did not appear on the albums Out Of Reach (1978) or Can (1979) - he did, however, do some production work on the latter album. Out Of Reach has subsequently been disowned by the band and is not listed on their website's discography. Can quietly disbanded at the end of the 1970s, but has reformed on a few occasions since.

After the split (1980 onwards)

Since the split, all the former members have been involved in musical projects; Czukay seems to have had the most success. In 1986 they briefly reformed, with Mooney but without Suzuki, to record Rite Time (released in 1989). There was a further reunion to record a track for the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World, and Can have since been the subject of numerous compilations, live albums and samples.

In 1999 the four founding members of Can - Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt - performed live in the same show, but separately as "Can-Solo-Projects," playing with their current solo projects. These solo projects were:

Michael Karoli died on 17 November 2001 after a long battle with cancer, whilst Irmin Schmidt has begun working with the acclaimed drummer Martin Atkins, producing a remix for the industrial band The Damage Manual, and a cover of Banging the Door for a Public Image Ltd tribute album, both released on Atkins' label, Invisible Records.

In 2004, the band began an ongoing series of Super Audio CD remasters of its back catalog. Currently, all albums except Out of Reach are available, as are the compilations Unlimited Edition and Delay 1968. Out of Reach is not expected to be re-released, as it has since been disowned by the band.

Discography

Studio albums

All albums aside from Out of Reach are now available as remastered SACDs.

Can, primarily an album oriented band, occasionally released singles, including the poppy, non-album track, "Turtles Have Short Legs"(1971). This was backed with a completely re-edited and truncated version of "Halleluwah" from Tago Mago with the hopes of gaining the band a radio presence.
Enlarge
Can, primarily an album oriented band, occasionally released singles, including the poppy, non-album track, "Turtles Have Short Legs"(1971). This was backed with a completely re-edited and truncated version of "Halleluwah" from Tago Mago with the hopes of gaining the band a radio presence.

Singles

Collection albums

Unlimited Edition and Delay 1968 are currently available as remastered SACDs.

Compilations

Bootlegs

Can were never a heavily taped band, but a good amount of their live performances may be found on bootleg trading sites such as etree or via the yahoo group "canopener". In addition, the band released the live album "Can Box: Live 1971-1977" in 1999, which included songs from several audience recordings not taped by the band.

Film and video

Soundtracks

Trivia

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Spoon

"Spoon" (1972), a German top 40 hit, was featured in Samuel Fuller's television production Tatort - Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße (Dead Pigeon in Beethoven Street), and more recently in Lynne Ramsay's film adaptation of Morvern Callar (2004).

Popular indie rock band Spoon took their moniker from this song.

References

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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