TAGO MAGO

Damo Suzuki's first full studio album with CAN is also the group's most diverse and startling work. Beginning with a deceptively gentle introduction, with Suzuki's plaintive croon over a comparatively straightforward instrumental backing in Paperhouse, once you step across the threshold of the album you're in for shrieking maniac yelping in Peking O, furious funk-inspired basslines in Halleluwah, and the terrifying Aumgn, which ranges from dark ambient soundscapes to shrieking chaos. Inspired, apparently, by the life and works of self-proclaimed black magician Aleister Crowley - Tagomago being an island once visited by Crowley, and Aumgn being a magical phrase declared to be of some importance by him - Tago Mago is every bit as eccentric and dark as you'd expect such a thing to be.