Krautrock #16: Can - Tago Mago

Well what do you say about one of the most cited albums of all time? I guess Tago Mago rates up there with Trout Mask Replica as being the most famous work of a group and also one of the most difficult. Certainly I recall MW saying what a mind fuck he found Aumgn compared with the rest of the album. It’s certainly the “darker” side of Can and for that reason I nearly chose the track; however there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s Halleluhwah that most often gets cited and seeing as it’s also the longest track…
Then again I chose the one / two punch of Paperhouse and Mushroom that start the album off. On vinyl or cd there is a deliberately clunky 0 second edit between the two tracks, to my mind it foreshadows the edits you get today on digital players when you select no gap between tracks when one continuous piece of music has been arbitrarily split. Always makes me think of a dj lining up the a and b side of a single but the drums don’t quite match up. For me these relatively compact tracks are a sort of distilled essence of the band at this time and to me show that it was the rhythm section of Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming and Damo Suzuki’s vocals that are at the centre of things driving the improv / freak out along. That’s right I’m putting Damo in the rhythm section here. Give it a spin and think about it. There’s more to vocals than rhyming moon / June and fire / desire! The set is more or less live in the studio and I’m guessing Holger Czukay spent more time editing for length and getting the interesting bits than actually polishing up the sound.
There’s a somewhat enthusiastic review on AMG here
Paperhouse
Mushroom
Halleluhwah
Ripped at 320 feel the force!
djh