CAN

Pleasantly surprised, much better than expected!! To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect from a late 80's Can album, but I can say for sure the artwork doesn't give the slightest hint to how much fun this album is, it's one you can feel they were surly having a good time laying down! There's no late 80's junk on here, this is a well constructed and played album.

The recording quality is good, clean with lots of space between the instruments, open and balanced, Holger Czukay's bass tone is lovely, Jaki Liebezeit's playing is fairly sparse and only occasionally are some sprinkles of prime Can rhythms drifting through, though he's an excellent player he plays these basic grooves with great feel! I'm a big fan of restrained guitar and there's loads of nice funk twinkled parts on here.

There's an immense control and discipline in the playing on the whole, minimalistic with everything in the mix sounding deliberate in it's usage, the players parts compliment each other greatly and no one steps on the others toes.

Definitely not an album to dismiss without giving a fair chance first!

This show was recorded live Halloween night in 1975. And like the "Brighton" release that follows we get two discs worth a total of 90 minutes. Here though we have 70 minutes on disc one and 20 minutes on that second disc. The third in the series called "Cuxhaven" is under 30 minutes and has drawn a lot of complaints for being so short.

The third and final track on disc one is 36 minutes long and the highlight for me. The way they get experimental, the way the tempo speeds up for a while is fun. It turns spacey late followed by a driving rhythm. So good! The second track on disc one at 14 minutes is also a favourite, sort of trippy and light early but ending in an intense fashion with some killer drum work. There's two tracks on disc two and the opener is the one I like of them. There's an uplifting vibe here for some reason as the guitar grinds away over top. It does seem like a jumbled mess to end it with the muddy sound not helping.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this for the sound quality and the fact these are improvs. I'm just not that big on improvs let alone 90 minutes worth, but if this sounded like the live albums of today I think I'm going 4 stars. When it comes to Krautrock CAN, AMON DUUL II and AGITATION FREE contributed most to my best of Krautrock list. This is the one I'd check out first if your interested in this live series.

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.

Crazy, wacky, intense, yet chill, delicious, nutritious, malicious reggae rock. But it is Can, so it is brought to the threshold and pushed past it. When you think a ten minute guitar solo (the title track) is at its peak, it goes further, up and beyond. This album is magical. Not in the crazy, dissonant, nasty, disturbing way that Can usually is, but in a chill, lax, and easy way that is not executed the same in any other album in Can's discography. 'I Want More' is the most commercial Can ever got (and still surprisingly good!), Cascade Waltz is just some trippy, psychedelic five-minute reggae groove, "Laugh 'Till You Cry" is a Can-ified cruise-ship ditty, '...And More' is a bass- heavy reprise of the first track, 'Babylonian Pearl is a funky and relaxed jam with nothing special with it apart from the fact that it is Can who made it, 'Smoke' is a heavy new installment to the EFS franchise, and the title track is just a pure Can masterpiece. It holds up to some of the best later Can songs, like 'Vernal Equinox', 'Theif', and 'Unfinished'. Overall, a great Can album which doesn't fall nearly as short as it gets shamed for. Solid, yet fluid and chewable at the same time. Prog on.

Can's compilation 'Opener' holds some of their most popular songs from right around the Suzuki era. This is an amazing collection of tracks, and I love that Can did not shorten one of them. The album starts off with 'Dizzy Dizzy', originally on 'Soon Over Babaluma'. This is my favorite song on that album. Then is 'Moonshake', the Krautpop classic also found on their unanimous master album, 'Future Days'. This song is so freaking amazing I can barely hold it in. The random sound effect interlude, the chorus, those classic groovy Can drums, everything. The third track is 'Sing Swan Song', from 'Ege Bamyasi', undoubtedly their most commercial album from the Suzuki period. This is my second favorite song on 'Ege Bamyasi', only behind 'Pinch'. Acting as the closing track for side one is 'Come Sta, La Luna', which was the first SOB track I heard. The title caught my eye immediately. It translates to 'Eat the Moon' in Spanish. This is one of my favorite non-Suzuki Can songs. On the second side is 'Spoon', another Krautpop classic from Can. Great keyboard solo and more classic Can drumming. 'I'm So Green' is a fun little groovy track off of 'Ege Bamyasi'. Then there is 'Vitamin C', which has a special place in my heart because once I deeply disturbed a friend by playing it for them. This track is amazing and is one of my favorite Can songs of all time. Closing this compilation album is the whole holy approximate nine minutes of 'Future Days', from the album of the same name. This is actually my least favorite song on 'Future Days', but only because all three tracks are even better somehow. This is a truly great track to end one of my favorite compilations of all time. I deeply respect the unaltered song lengths, the tracks chosen to enter this album (although I would've liked something from 'Tago Mago' to be on here), and the overall fun mood of this album apart from the closer of both sides. If I were to go back to 1974, I would definitely have picked this album up at a record store and jam to it for some good fun. Can, you will always have a special place in my heart, you beautiful, beautiful, hella weird beast.

As I warn anyone willing to listen to this album: be warned: it's a hard listen. 'Tago Mago' starts with 'Paperhouse', a song with great lyrics and a guitar solo so freaking great it makes me want to cry, then moves into 'Mushroom', a somewhat groovy song that just happens to be the only song under six minutes on this album. Also has some great lyrics. 'Oh Yeah' is a largely instrumental track with some of the weirdest lyrics known to man. 'Halleluwah' occupies an entire side, and is my personal favorite Can song. I couldn't help but point out that this sounds like Cage the Elephant's 'Ain't No Rest for The Wicked' (I hope I was the first on Prog Archives to say that, I didn't care to look for it in different reviews). But then - be prepared, you must be prepared - is 'Aumgn'. I am trying my best not to spoil everything, but I won't. You have to listen to it on your own. 'Peking O' is a Kraftwerk-esque eleven-minute track featuring extended futuristic keyboard interludes and crazy jabbering, which still makes me worry about the mental health of vocalist Damo Suzuki. This song, while barely comprehensible, is what I think best embodies Can. Their fearless attitude toward innovation. This track is nonsense, and it isn't even really music, but I listen to it regularly on streaming services whenever I feel like being drifted away into another world. This carries you away to the ending song: 'Bring Me Coffee or Tea', the second shortest song on 'Tago Mago', clocking in at just under seven minutes. Very groovy and odd; a perfect end-track to such a weird album.

I am sure all these tracks are based on others which appeared on albums, even if they are only influenced by them, and here the seven songs (91 minutes in length) are literally just numbered 1-9 (in German). I read one review which said to miss out the early songs altogether and go straight to 'Vier' as that is where the magic starts, and while that may be true I found the build to that was wonderful. Here was a band who were improvising on the spot, looking to each other for direction and inspiration, then travelling in that direction and bringing the audience with them. By this time they had been playing together for seven years, and it had been a couple of years and an album since the departure of Damo Suzuki, so they were again used to working as a quartet, and through the set they gradually warm up and get into the groove, finding the special place where everyone turns into trans galactic space goats where all that exists is the music and everything else just pales into no existence.

This is classic Can, captured in wonderful sound quality and one would never imagine this recording is now nearly fifty years old as it could have been from last week, except people just don't perform music like this anymore, or do they? Classic progheads, lovers of experimental music and Can aficionados need to dig this out.

I haven't heard this record until a couple of months ago, I saw a video of Can playing "Vernal equinox" alive and I got really amazed by that song, so I decided to give "Landed" a try, not their best record but actually a very interesting one, I have to say. Almost every Progressive Rock band had to change its style to a more commercial one in order to survive to the demands of the music industry; "Landed" was the incursion of Can in this commercial field: except for "Vernal equinox" and "Unfinished", the songs on this album are totally oriented to average Rock fans, obviously keeping a bit of their most classic style but in general terms: the songs are shorter than in any other Can album, lots of lyrics, silly and not very deep mantric riffs. The percussions in "Red hot Indians" are very folky, but that goes to the drain with the hideous sax filling the entire piece. I said this album is a very interesting one, but interesting doesn't necessarily mean good, it is interesting because of the change of musical direction the band took, but musically, this is merely acceptable.

SONG RATING: Full Moon on the highway, 3 Half-past one, 3 Hunters and collectors, 3 Vernal equinox, 4 Red hot Indians, 3 Unfinished, 4

AVERAGE: 3.33

PERCENTAGE: 66.67

ALBUM RATING: 3 stars

This was actually the first album of Can that I've ever heard and, back in those days, I totally fell in love with it; I used to listen to it every single day and when I finally bought my CD copy I felt as if I had found the Holy Grail but that was twelve years ago when I was just taking baby steps into the fields of Prog and I was much easier to impress. Comparing this album with the absolute masterpieces of Can ("Tago Mago", "Future days" and "Monster movie"), "Soon over babaluma" gives the feeling that something's missing, maybe it is Damo Suzuki's vocals or maybe it is a very intense jamming section.

Some of the most futuristic moments in Can's discography came from "Soon over babaluma"; the album actually feels like the soundtrack of a science fiction movie, the ambient music that the band developed in "Future days" took a darker path and the instrumental sections took even more presence. The selection of rhythms is very varied: "Come sta la luna?" for example, brings an almost tango music with Michael Karoli's violin, a very avant-garde tango anyway, since its dark atmosphere creates an interesting contrast of textures. "Splash" is a very acid instrumental piece, while "Chain reaction" explodes into a very energic sung tune that has almost a proto-punk vibe. "Dizzy Dizzy" sounds like a very underground jazz fusion band exploring the paths of darky melodies and "Quantum physics" flirts with the Electronic school of Can's paisanos Tangerine Dream.

I do not consider this an indispensable masterpiece as I used to when I first discover it and as I still do with "Tago Mago" and "Future days", but man! This is still a terrific album.

SONG RATING: Dizzy, Dizzy, 4 Come sta la luna? 4 Splash, 5 Chain reaction, 5 Quantum physics, 4

AVERAGE: 4.4

PERCENTAGE: 88

ALBUM RATING: 4 stars

When the musicians know what they're doing, very organic and minimalistic music is enough to make a masterpiece, extremely complexity is not always needed. After a very average album such as "Ege bamyasi", Can came back to the long-lengthed pieces but this time they were not full of chaotic madness as "Peking O" and "Halleluhwah", actually the music on this album is much more organic and less energic; "Future days" was the last Can album featuring Damo Suzuki but actually, his contribution to this record wasn't as crucial as he did in previous albums, actually, this record could have been entirely instrumental (and it almost is) and it would have still been great.

The opening track is the almost ambient music track "Future days", its rhythm is extremely relaxed, it could pass as music for an elevator with no problem; very calm percussions and a repetitive bass note is what it has to offer, it is a perfect example of how good a song can be with such few elements. "Spray" flirts with the most psychedelic and spacey sounds of the album, its introduction is filled with very intense percussions and keyboards, reaching the end the speed of the percussions increases and the guitar replaces keyboards with a very subtle collection of patterns; probably this is the most similar to "Tago Mago" they made on this record.

"Moonshake" is great, it is the shortest track on the album but it is also the most direct, being not a very extended piece, and with easy-to-follow lyrics, it is probably the most accessible track. The almost 20-minute closing track "Bel Air" is absolutely tremendous, the rhythm doesn't change a lot through its entireness but it really doesn't need it, the song goes and goes with a very natural flow that enerves when it needs it, and then it switches back to the calm mood, the simplicity of the piece its what gives its greatness.

SONG RATING: Future days, 5 Spray, 5 Moonshake, 4 Bel Air, 5

AVERAGE: 4.75

PERCENTAGE: 95

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #54 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.