[Holger Czukay] racconta la storia dei Can
stanz
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CAN -
DISCOGRAPHY
by Holger Czukay (May 1997)
CAN's first recording ever was made in June 1968 during our
first concert for a modern art exhibition at Schloss
Nvrvenich near Cologne. It is called PREHISTORIC FUTURE and
was released 1984 on the Tago Mago label in Paris as a
limited number of mono-cassettes (2000 pressings). For the
first time we recorded samples of the students' rebellion of
1968 in Paris and these became an important part of the
concert. From there on we were lucky in obtaining the
permission for building up our own studio in Schloss
Norvenich. This studio consisted of 2 stereo tape-deck
machines and about 4 microphones. A musician's amplifier was
used as our 'recording mixer'. We immediately started
recording film music for a young German film director and
through this experience we decided to become a rhythmically
orientated 'heavy weight' group in combination with
ethnological influences- sometimes at least. And as we were
trying to imitate 'primitive sounds' CAN ended up with its
Ethnological Forgery Serie and did not even stop at
imitating a Japanese No spectacle. Of
course we regarded these attempts more from the humorous
than from a perfect performance side.
The first regular CAN album was MONSTER MOVIE and the first
piece we recorded was 'Father Cannot Yell.' We thought more
of a collapsing building in slow motion pictures than
becoming heroes on our instruments. Everything was
spontaneously recorded by 'instant composition'. 'Yoo Doo
Right' was an unusual long piece of music at that time with
a rhythm which did not belong to the world of Rock 'n Roll.
It seemed more to be played by an electric tribe band with
adequate instruments of that time.
The album SOUNDTRACKS became more an in-between
project,because it took CAN much more time in finishing the
double album TAGO MAGO than we thought. Of course we could
not live by our income from live gigs or record sales and so
CAN was lucky in doing several film musics. The title tracks
of the pictures were released as soundtracks on the
SOUNDTRACK album. 'Don't Turn the Light on, Leave Me Alone'
was Damo's first recording with CAN ever. This piece
expresses Damo's mood at that time I think, after I found
him singing or 'praying' loud in the streets of Munich. Jaki
and me were sitting outside in a cafe when Damo came near. I
said to Jaki: 'This will be our new singer.' Jaki: 'how can
you say that, you don't even know him.' I got up from my
seat, went to Damo and asked him if he is free for the
evening. We were an experimental rock group and we were
going to play a concert the night- sold out. Damo said he
had nothing special to do, so why shouldn't he sing. The
venue was packed that evening and Damo started murmuring
like a meditating monk. All of a sudden he turned into a
fighting samurai, the audience was shocked and almost
everybody left the hall. About 30 Americans were left and
got totally excited about what they heard. Among them was
Hollywood
actor David Niven who probably thought he was attending to
some sort of nightmare happening.
TAGO MAGO was CAN's official second album and was an attempt
in achieving a mystery musical world from light to darkness
and return. The album consisted not only out of regularly
recorded music, but for the first time we combined
'in-between-recordings', that means the musicians were
secretly recorded in the pauses when a new microphone and
recording set up was being established. In that time the
rest of the group just played in order to make the time pass
by instead of waiting till the technical problems were
solved. And there was always one microphone and one recorder
on standby position for such cases. Altogether certainly a
psychedelic experience, and the studio itself even turned
into something new e.g. by changing dramatically the
whole illumination.
At the end of 1971 CAN moved into another village with
their studio equipment where we rented an old cinema which
wasn't any longer used as such.The walls were covered by new
walls out of 1500 military matresses and the studio looked
like an elephant from inside. We could achieve an excellent
dry and ambient sound in there and the interior submitted a
cozy landscape feeling with all possibilities of spontaneous
recordings. EGE BAMYASI was the first album made in this new
environment and reflects the group being in a lighter mood
than it was in Schloss Norvenich. 'Vitamin C' became the
title track of the Hollywood movie 'Dead Pigeon' by Samuel
Fuller and 'Spoon' was another title track of a TV-gangster
series. Everytime about
30 million people switched their TV on, they heard this
and so it didn't surprise when 'Spoon' became a top ten
hit in Germany. And 'Spoon' was one of the first pieces
banded on tape in combination of an electric drum
machine and a drummer who was himself an i n h u m a n
machine.
As 'Spoon' was so successful CAN could afford having
some summer holidays for the first time in its short
history. And when everyone returned back to the Inner
Space Studio, the music had this summer feeling too. A
lot of editings and cuttings were involved during the
production and for the first time I could concentrate
myself only on bass playing and didn't function as
CAN's recording engeneer at the same time. This became
the job for our roadies now. Especially 'Bel Air'
showed CAN in a state of being an electric symphony group
performing a peaceful though sometimes dramatic
landscape painting.
And it was the calm weather before the storm too. Damo
got married to a German girl from the Jehovas'
Witness religion and left CAN. For the rest of the
group it was the feeling of a powerful fist strike into
one's
stomach. We tried out many other singers,but nobody
suited to us anymore. So guitarist Michael Karoli and
space organist Irmin Schmidt and sometimes me filled
the gap. SOON OVER BABALUMA was the last
album which was recorded straight onto stereo without a
multi-tracking machine. An era came to an end. But
it was also the birth of something new. 'Quantum
Physics' became one of the first ambient music pieces with a
sort of techno character thanks to Jaki's fabulous
machine drumming and Irmin's prehistoric synthesizer 'alpha
77'.
In all these years from 1968 to 1974 a lot of
unofficial in between recordings came to existence. This was
somehow the other face of CAN. These recordings were
first released as a LIMITED EDITION album and
later got expanded to UNLIMITED EDITION. This double
album witnesses the extraordinary mood of the
Inner Space Studio and only in such a place these
recordings had been possible. We have tested out other
professional studios but none could equal our private
home studio which put the musicians in such a special
state of creativity.
In 1975, CAN obtained their first 16 track recorder and
that gave a lot of change to the groups musical
output. LANDED became the first CAN album which got a
real mix- a professional mix so to speak. The
ambient aspect had its successor in 'Unfinished' and
for the first time a guest musician appeared on an CAN
album: Olaf Kubler from Amon Duul played saxophone on
'Red Hot Indians'.
FLOW MOTION showed how CAN got influenced by reggae
music, though no song of this album is actually
reggae music. But I remember attending for the first
time Bob Marley in concert and I was really impressed by
the drums and bass and the reggae-designed guitar work.
The very sinister 'Smoke' reminded me of CAN
getting back into the sixties again and 'I Want More'
took CAN into the U.K. charts, giving an impression of
CAN's danceable power. One of my favourite pieces
became 'Flow Motion' itself and this time it didn't matter
that nobody was singing. It was the nucleus of the
group performing this music as it had been from the very
beginning since its existence.
The times were changing. During a TV-recording in
England we met the musicians of TRAFFIC and two of
them soon visited us at Inner Space. Rebop and Rosko
Gee liked the way we were approaching music and so
they got involved as the new temporary CAN members
leading especially the rhythms into a fluent
bombardment. It was the time when I invented a new
instrumental scenario for myself which switched CAN to
different medias like radio tuning, prepared samples of
other ethno worlds, electronic treatments and a
different instrumental line up as such. 'Animal Waves'
of SAW DELIGHT became a journey into other
countries and their musical cultures. All of this was
synchronized by an activated morse key. Without our new
members from TRAFFIC, this intensive musical flow would
have never been established.
And as everything comes once to an end, the CAN album
showed a last time the glance of a vanishing star. 'All
Gates Open' is synonymous for it. And we could take
that title straight. All gates really came open for each
member of the band going their own musical way which
everyone had dreamed of - until 1987, when our first
singer Malcolm Mooney wrote us a letter from the United
States asking if we couldn't come together again.
Since his departure from the group he got named as an
artist without having made an attempt as a singer again.
He wanted to know how it feels again standing with the
band behind a microphone, which had made him so
sick when he had left. We all came together in the
beautiful landscape of South France and a new spirit came
up with the first recordings. In the meantime the group
became slowly matured still remaining the original
CAN of the old days with an uptodate musical output.
RITE TIME was born and especially 'In the Distance
lies the Future' became one of my favourite CAN pieces
of all time.
With such an amount of musical material recorded in
around 10 years it became obvious that new
combinations and shorted versions were finding its way
into CANIBALISM I to III. The listener who gets in
contact with CAN's music for the first time will get a
concentrated impression on certain essential aspects.
'Animal Waves' on CANIBALISM II was never cutted so
effectively to the point as it is on this album. And
this is only one example.
One thing shouldn't been forgotten: when our first
album entitled PREPARED TO MEET THY PNOOM was
finished no record company wanted to get hold of that
kind of music. So we decided to go on recording and
try it again. This was leading to MONSTER MOVIE and we
made a private pressing out of it, before a record
company wanted to sign us. These very first recordings
were later released as DELAY 1968. When I did the
mastering in the beginning of the eighties the
enigmatic German producer Conny Planck listened to it and
got
excited saying: 'As long as CAN playes 'Soul' they are
unbeatable.' 'Little Star of Bethlehem' is one of the first
recordings with inserted overdub parts of the whole
group.
1997 becomes the year where other musicians show the
timeless aspect of CAN's music in the new remix
album SACRILEGE. And this is the Sound of CAN in the
nineties.
Alberto
stanz <st...@libero.it> wrote in message 39AEB894...@libero.it...
> http://furious.com/perfect/hysterie2.html
>
(megasnip)
Mai ascoltato Flux+Mutability assieme a Sylvian? Fantastico!!!
Mi sembra che la loro collaborazione non si sia fermata li, ma che abbiano
fatto un'altro album, ce l'hai? Com'e'?
stanz
Alberto wrote:
> Mai ascoltato Flux+Mutability assieme a Sylvian? Fantastico!!!
> Mi sembra che la loro collaborazione non si sia fermata li, ma che abbiano
> fatto un'altro album, ce l'hai? Com'e'?
Plight + Premonition :-))
Molto bello, dilatato, praticamente il prototipo dell'altro.
ciao s.