MONSTER MOVIE

Although CAN had enough previous material recorded earlier in the form of DELAY 1968 which wouldn't see the light of day until 1981, they felt they needed to record more accessible material. Really? Was this accessible even in 1969?!! Anyway they would be amongst the first of the Krautrock bands who would put the emphasis on a hypnotic, repetitive and often improvised layering of sounds to make some pretty groovin' music.

It seems that mainman and bassist Holger Czukay picked up a bunch of influences when he visited New York City in 1966 and returned to Germany transfixed by the possibilities of a new sounding rock form. By blending the minimalism of Steve Reich with the psychedelics of The Velvet Underground with some healthy doses of blues, free jazz and world music he succeeded in creating a new music form that would become a major influence in not only the nascent Krautrock scene but on such disparate genres as post-punk, indie rock and even some electronic artists.

This album has a unique sound all right even within CAN's own discography. It is mostly high energy hypnotic funk and rock with the focus on repetitive drumming. I find this a very interesting experience with the weak link possibly being Malcolm Mooney's less than outstanding vocal abilities. The final track 'Yoo Doo Right' which clocks in at 20:27 on the album is actually the edited version. The original was a 6-hour improvisation. I can only imagine what kind of mass quantities of drugs that must have been consumed to sustain such a thing for that long!