Album: Can, The Lost Tapes 1968-1975 (Spoon/Mute)

5.00

Classic krautrock collection makes for a real find

Culled from some 50 hours of tapes retrieved from their former studio near Cologne, this 3CD set is a fantastic collection of unreleased material from one of the most important bands of the last century.

Can were the archetypal "krautrock" group – ironically, given that much of their best work featured either Malcolm Mooney, an American, or Damo Suzuki, from Japan, as vocalists. Students of Stockhausen, blessed with renegade jazz and classical chops, and fully aware of the possibilities opened up by John Cage, they brought a feverishly questing spirit to rock music.

Rather than the blues roots underpinning most Anglo-American rock, they drew on minimalism, serialism, the churning motor-pulse of the Velvet Underground, and ethnic strains then unheard in Western pop. The result was some of the most striking, individual music ever made. The earliest pieces included here, such as "Millionenspiel", find them forging a unique sound already at an acute angle to the prevailing British and US modes, using drummer Jaki Liebezeit's urgent, metronomic beats to carry startling sonic excursions of guitar and organ. They worked best as a unit, improvising collectively to find the synergistic core of an idea: by their own admission, the "freedom" subsequently afforded by multi-track overdubbing leached that power from their later recordings.

But these recordings are pure Can at their most potent, with menacing, mantra-like chants alongside fractured ambient soundscapes, "aural meditations" and crunching psych-rock riffing. In some tracks can be glimpsed the youthful stages of later Can classics such as "Vitamin C", "Sing Swan Song" and "Vernal Equinox", while the use of certain sounds and tones allows one to date other works fairly precisely, as in the tremulous organ tone that fixes "Abra Cada Braxas" firmly in the Future Days era; and there are devastating live versions of favourites like "Spoon".

Yet despite restlessly exploring hitherto untrodden musical terrain, there are precious few wasted seconds in these three hours. We shall not hear their like again.

Download: Millionenspiel; Dead Pigeon Suite; Abra Cada Braxas; Midnight Men

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Arts & Ents blogs

Children’s Books: Recommended read – ‘A Monster Calls’ by Patrick Ness

Thirteen-year-old Conor awakes in bed one night to discover that the yew tree outside his house has ...

Made in Chelsea – Series 5, Episode 11: Louise plays and wins at Spencer’s game

It’s hard not to feel sorry for doe-eyed Andy. He spends months pining after Louise, has huge nostr...

The Returned: ‘Simon’ – Series 1, episode 2

Fragility of life looms large over an episode that closes with the scarring on Julie's stomach. Whil...

       
 

ES Rentals

    'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong': The true effect of the badger cull

    The true effect of the badger cull

    'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong'
    Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan

    First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan

    Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's comedy
    Girls Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

    Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

    After 103 years, organisation changes oath to welcome 'all girls, of all faiths, and none'
    Steve Tongue: Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago

    Steve Tongue

    Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago
    Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Bradley Wiggins' exit

    Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Wiggins' exit

    Sky's lead rider says he is in fantastic form for the Tour and happy pecking order debate is over
    Hannah England: I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess

    Hannah England: Keeping Track

    I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess
    Beards, brawn and body art

    Beards, brawn and body art

    Meet London’s new batch of male models
    Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

    Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

    British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
    Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

    The Great Green Wall of Africa,

    Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
    Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

    Laughter Inc

    The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
    The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

    The bad science scandal

    How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
    To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

    Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

    A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
    Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

    In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

    Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
    Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

    Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

    English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
    Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

    Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

    Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends