Opening Up The Can Remasters
By: E.S. Hurt |
Friday September 23, 2005 |
| And get Can's "Landed" if you plan to be in your car for ten hours--it'll get you where you're going, it'll make you drive like you're on the Autobahn. |
| As part of Spoon's ambitious re-release schedule of all the Can material, here are what one might call four examples of Can's middle period. Last year saw the release of early classics like Tago Mago and Monster Movie; this winter will see four more, including Saw and Flow Motion, and next spring three more are slated, including a two-CD Can Live.
How good were they? Well, to these ears, they were, at their best, a German analog to what Miles Davis was doing around the same time. Music as flow, music as process, music created out of disparate performances in the studio. The vocals are sometimes right-on, sometimes distracting (Damo Suzuki left after 1973's Future Days). And a lot of this doesn't really work all that well, especially the bulk of 1976's Unlimited Edition, which does contain one of the group's very best extended pieces, "Gomorrha." Landed, from 1975, is perhaps the most problematic release here. Parts of it are brilliant, like "Hunters and Collectors." And it's a great road-trip album. But it seems at once more straightforward "rock" music and somehow not quite rocking enough--a concession to the times, sort of Golden Earring for intellectuals, than something that is forward-looking. But there are many who regard this as one of their best albums. This leaves two more, one almost classic and one, well, semi-semi classic. Future Days opens with watery sound effects and shimmering cymbals, and with a magical melody intoned by vocalist Suzuki. This is where Can sounds most like the Miles Davis of "Calypso Frelimo," except this is German-Afro-Cuban groove. Track number two works around a 6/8 drum pattern, throws in a parodistic rock and roll lick, bongos and some Middle-Eastern guitar licks. The short song "Spray" is their attempt at pop; and the closer, "Bel Air," finds Can at their most inspired and frustrating, since about half of it is brilliant and the other half is somewhat less so. Which you could say about Davis during the same period, except that Davis had a better groove--not that Can's drummer ain't basically holding the whole thing together. And too, Can sounds a bit like the Allman Brothers, so while I think Can was a fine group, they never quite seemed all that to me: I like the Allman Brothers. Too bad Can never made it to Nashville, or worked with the dudes from Wet Willie. Motorik boogie? The other one, Soon over Babaluma, from 1974, has its moments, but they already seem kind of second-hand here. The first song skanks along in a Germano-reggae groove, and in general this sounds like they've been listening to...what? tango? ska? Roscoe Gordon? The Wild Magnolias, the Meters? Who knows? Anyway, I find it florid and lacking in the rigor of their earliest work--it's a considerable letdown after Future Days. But again, listening to Can is largely an exercise in marginal differentiation, which might well be what they were going for--it's music whose impact really does change according to the mood of the listener. So I ain't knocking, them, nope. All in all, some good stuff; and some frustratingly half-assed shit. I'd avoid the disc of rarities Unlimited, which is kind of a shame since the aforementioned "Gomorrha" remains one of my favorite Can tracks. And get Landed if you plan to be in your car for ten hours--it'll get you where you're going, it'll make you drive like you're on the Autobahn. And I'm all for America running their interstates like the Germans run the Autobahn, you know. |
