LIVE IN BRIGHTON 1975

I consider myself a pretty big fan of CAN with those first five studio albums from 1968 to 1972 being my favourite period of their music. I'm counting "Delay '68" which is archival as the first. So I was really on the fence about picking this one up considering it's live material from 1975. This was actually a learning experience because CAN in the studio I found out are very different from CAN playing live. So what we have here are two discs of improvs that were never played previously or afterwards. While the sound quality isn't bad it is muddy even affecting me hearing certain instruments at times. It's a far cry from the sound quality of live music today but that is expected. Recorded by a fan it is much better than you might expect but when I rate as a fan the sound quality is important to that rating.

In the liner notes Irmin Schmidt relates how Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" performance at Woodstock changed his attitude to making music. "It was like an orchestral painting, only solo on one guitar, that really stirred me at the time and had a big influence. It's action painting. It's very expressive, emotional and full of a certain kind of expression. That's what I was after, and what fascinated me in Jimi Hendrix, because what he does there, in one fell stroke, is create a new instrument. That's what you as a composer try to aspire to." And speaking of the liner notes one of my favourite things about this release are the black and white pictures of the band members, just so well done.

I had a hard time with the first disc as we get four tracks over 47 plus minutes. There's quite a bit of sparse music on this disc where it's quiet and usually that's at the beginning of the improv. Guitar, organ and drums are mostly standing out once they get going. I do like how experimental the final track is on disc one. Disc two is three tracks over 43 plus minutes and in my opinion a more enjoyable listen as we get some fire here and there. They continue to start slow with sparse sounds but yes this is where we get some passion. This just isn't a 4 star recording for me. "The Lost Tapes" blows this out of the water on a number of levels but I know the fanboys will be eating this one up.