FUTURE DAYS

First of all, you have got to see music in coexistence with the times surrounding it. Can were at a very special place musically back in 1972 - Damo had proven to be an unforeseen vocal attribute to the band, and the way these guys rolled with each other was just a thing of beauty. An astonishing example of how you could twist sound out of it's proportion and make it into something funky, unhinged and psychedelic.

Recorded during the scorching heat of down-town Cologne in 1972, the sweat does actually drip from the walls during these recordings. The band is so into each other going by almost telepathic powers, that you get the feel of steam filled rooms with semi naked men roaming around frantically, and it shows.

Irmin Schmidt tends to be forgotten sometimes, but the way he conjures up sound and sparkling sodapop electronics on this outing is just mind-bendingly brilliant. It's like an organic pulse soaking everything around it in magic honey. Most wonderful thing about it though is it's willingness to cooperate with the ambient shamanistic and rather lethargic calypso funk of Jaki Liebezeit, who in return is remarkably loud in the mix. That is the thing about Can you have to remember: They were all about the sound and groove. In a live setting, Karoli's guitars would suddenly roar right through in the jam, whilst Czukay's bass similarly climbed to unknown sound levels, leaving Jaki's drums in the back. On here they are right up front, and it clearly demonstrates to me how much they appreciated what they indeed brought into the band. On some levels, Future Days is actually all about the feel the drumming gives off. The surrounding instruments circle around the beat like big surfing kites, and those great overdubbings he additionally does with the bongo drums is just some of the most frail beautiful and truly melodic drumming I have ever heard in my life.

Then you have the spirit of the 60s oozing through underneath it all as well. That was always what guitarist Michael Karoli injected into the sound. His jamming laid back suave and gentle persona counters the somewhat staccato stuttering and hypnotic force of the rhythm section, and does so with a natural docile touch. He's like an eternal trip to the beach, if you will. and backing him up in an unorthodox manner is Holger Czukay, who really is a bit of a mastermind. People who have heard his Canaxis album probably know what I'm on about, as this release displays some of the most adventurous soundscapes you'll ever come across. Together with Karoli he is like a fish in the sea. They know each other so well, and everything is right in the pocket. What this effectively does, is to grant the guys the power to break free at any given moment and still be right in the groove! And that is essentially what this album is all about: The Groove!!

Don't come looking for melodies and highly sung choruses here matey! This is about the summer- glistened sunlit bubbling groove of the mighty Can. Everything is an instrument in it's own right, even mimicking others at times whilst keeping the flooding beats. I know I don't normally write about albums with over 200 ratings, but then again there are albums I am always on about in the forums, and this is one of those, so instead of perpetuating the inevitable, I thought it best to share with you, one of my alltime great musical loves. This album also gets it's fair share of flack, and music will always be like that, but to me personally, I find Future Days timelessly beautiful. If you just forget about what Damo really is singing and let your mind transform him into an instrument, he becomes like this human tribal reed with strange wind-like characteristics to him.

Take it out at 5 in the morning, when the sun is getting outta bed and ready for some red and orange. This album has a thousand other colours to it, than originally shown on the blue front cover, and bringing Future Days with you into mother nature takes you to a whole other listening experience - proving to you just how organic and in tune these guys were. It is like stepping into a cooling breeze - like jumping in the tub after a week in the desert.

And when you think you got it pecked - you know what to expect next - you get Spray. This is an experiment, that not unlike Il Balletto di Bronzo's Ys is very reluctant to give off any sort of red thread or open melody. Two very different sounds, but still that wandering around in the surprisingly funky and tight musical space, still manages to convey the image of some remote cave explorers going around secret mountain alleys with flash lights looking for a way in the dark. The journey truly is the ride. Which quite efficiently speaks about the fuel running this band. They were seekers - true sound pioneers looking for the next great thing out there in the lands of music, and somehow Can were able to snatch on to it. They wielded that sucker right in - every time. At least for a period of 7 or 8 years, these guys were never less than hugely inspirational and unique in the world of experimental music.

Sometimes you miss that 6th star, and this is for me one of those occasions. I love this album.

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