FUTURE DAYS

This was my first kick at the CAN (sorry). I would describe this album as very laid back, with pulsating rythyms and a vocalist who just tries to blend in with the sound, singing quietly almost.This is a record that seems to be universally praised but I still don't understand why. I'm a huge CAN fan and have just about everything they've put out, but this album lacks the experimentations and dynamics that CAN is known and loved for. In the liner notes the music is described as being very direct and very obscure at the same time. It's also described as having a vaporous intensity. Well I can relate to the obscure and vaporous descritions.

The self titled track opens with lots of samples until we get a beat that slowly gets louder and louder. Distant sounding vocals joins in around 4 minutes. "Spray" features a mezmerizing beat consisting of cymbals and bongos, with outbursts here and there of various sounds.The tempo picks up and then it settles with sparse sounds. There is a cool guitar melody after six minutes when the vocals come into the song.

"Moonshake" is only 3 minutes long but it's alive and energetic. Great beat with vocals. "Bel Air" is almost 20 minutes in length, it consists of three sections that were recorded on seperate occasions.The band apparently debated over whether this was too symphonic. They detested (what they felt was) the pretensious classical-rock bands of their day, and didn't want to sound anything like them.

I've tried to unlock what is so special here but have not had any success.