TAGO MAGO

TAGO MAGO is one of the most controversial albums under the progressive rock umbrella, and it's easy to see why. When the genre of progressive rock is spoken, people think about lush keyboards, crystal clean production, memorable melodies and carefully constructed compositions; CAN has virtually none of these elements here. I can't make the warning any clearer: if you don't like long jams, compositions that are almost ''nonmusical'' and ''off'' vocals then stay very clear from TAGO MAGO.

It suffers from repetition, and I'm mainly speaking for the long ''Halleluwah''. I have an unfair advantage in liking the jam as I have a long drive to school and ''Halleluwah'' eats up the time quite quickly. ''Paperhouse'' sounds like a leftover from Woodstock, but the instrumental freak out in the middle is one of the highlights. Most with a melodic ear will find ''Bring Me Coffee or Tea'' delightful, a track where the keyboards have a big impact (a rarity for this album). ''Mushroom'' and ''Oh Yeah'' are amusing and nonoffensive, but not strong tracks here.

Where CAN really starts to get controversial are on the tracks ''Aumgn'' and ''Peking O'', two long tracks that barely qualify as actual music. Amidst the 17 minutes of ''Aumgn'', the only things I can recall are the ''AUM''s and scratchy violin notes; it's very annoying to say the least. At least ''Peking O'' finds a way to produce things that sound like beats which makes me happy.

Somehow, one can hear how punk, trance and even hip hop all might have taken influence from this record, but if we're talking about prog (as most of us have come to define ''prog''), then TAGO MAGO is in another universe. This is an album where you'd better know yourself before buying. If you're the music fan that is open, adventurous or has a knack for experimentalism, this is a good purchase.