Why put an odds and sods compilation, even if it is a re-issued expanded odds and sods compilation in a must have top 100? Well we’re talking about Can here. Legendarily right from the outset having their own recording studio meant that they could tape everything (though I’m sure I read that much tape was re-used, i.e. recorded over). In any event it’s left hundreds of hours of music that includes much that is first rate if not exactly what was needed for whatever project was currently on the boil.
In a sense I’m cheating here as I first came across Can in 1981 with a Virgin compilation called Incandescence. Gomorrha, Empress.. and Mother Upduff all feature there. It was a wonderful comp of latter day material albeit including early material re-worked. Coming as it did many years before the re-issue boom it was a complete eye opener. I guess though that I was one of only 6 people who bought it.
Gomorrha, from December ’73 making it from either the same sessions as Future Days or immediately afterwards, it continues that wonderful drifting / floating feeling I mentioned in the previous post. Is that a touch of Hawaiian guitar? The piano lends it a more Satie-esque nocturnal fee. Gorgeous.
E.F.S. no 7 Well we had to have at least one example of the groups famous Ethnological Forgery Series on here. It’s an idea copped by those Sun City Girls, see even their stealing isn’t original, never mind we love them anyhow. I chose this short example as I love the sound of a keyboard imitating a saz or similar.
The Empress and the Ukraine King It’s a song! It’s early Can with this and the next track featuring Malcolm Mooney on vocals (and why does his English have such a strong German accent, given he was an ex-US serviceman based in West Germany?) Slightly more sprightly and featuring Jaki Liebezeit on an unknown reed instrument.
What should I say about Mother Upduff? Can in Can telling Urban Legend stories shocker. Long time readers of my zine splurges could easily have guessed that this crazy tale was going to turn up. I’m still not sure how the octopus killed the old lady. Enjoy! It’s been pointed out elsewhere that absurdist humour, frequently Zappa inspired, is a mainstay of so-called Krautrock... well here’s The Can, as they were probably known at the time, sticking their big toe in the water.
Cutaway is another track added at the last minute, far and away the longest on this collection at nearly 19 minutes. Again I thought that to include it was a bit of a piss-take but I enjoyed the tune so much when I was trying to select what to put up. Off-kilter rhythms and a melodica making an appearance, everything sounds de-tuned maybe they're playing in some eastern scale I what not of. Oh and Cutaway because the track is made of fragments originating from some very different improvisions, bits of studio chat etc. You even get the sound of someone fooling around inside a piano and if that doesn’t make your gravy lumpy I don’t know what will. It’s another piece from ’69, so we get a nice balance with the late sixties, early seventies and mid seventies. Can may have used the same blueprint through these years but the sound they achieved has grown markedly in the different periods. Of course there’s nothing from the later period on this comp which is a damn shame (see Can Anthology for that), but if we get through this project I’m thinking of a cunning plan to sort out all manner of lost classics that didn’t make the 100 cut
Transcendental Express - Reasons for inclusion is that perhaps only Can would dare to have a banjo substituting for a balalaika, makes it all sound very Morricone in a weird fashion. I think it was a fairly regular thing to let Michael Karoli stretch himself a bit on different instruments, he was after all a hell of a player who (thankfully) didn’t get the chance to solo, Can being Can. Anyway this ’75 track is here as a reminder that the ethnic influences grew more pronounced in later years. Obviously something they’d always been interested in, it put 'ahem' a bit of extra spice in the stew to keep things fresh.
One last point about all the Can tracks, just after I’d finished these notes I came across a web piece by Simon Reynolds that notes that Can’s working method is exactly that employed by Miles Davis and Teo Macero. It’s included in a history of Krautrock page that also includes a bit of Lester Bangs. No in depth insight but a good read. Find it here:
Gomorrha
E.F.S. #7
The Empress & The Ukraine King
Mother Upduff
Cutaway
Transcendental Express
ripped @ 320 you know you love it
djh
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