Can

Scottish indie pop stalwarts the Trash Can Sinatras were founded outside of Glasgow in 1987 by singer/guitarist Frank Reader (the brother of ex-Fairground Attraction singer Eddi Reader), guitarists John Douglas and Paul Livingston, bassist George McDaid, and drummer Stephen Douglas. Initially formed as a cover band, they were performing in a local bar when they were discovered by Go! Discs label representative Simon Dine; their first single, the superb "Obscurity Knocks," appeared in early 1990, evoking the jangly guitar pop crafted by Scottish bands like Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, and Josef K a decade earlier. A second Trash Can Sinatras single, "Only Tongue Can Tell," preceded the release of the quintet's debut LP, Cake, which met with a positive response on both sides of the Atlantic; in the U.S., it became a particular favorite on college radio.

All copies of the June 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free CD – Can Live 1973 – 1977 – that brings together music from Can’s indispensable live series. On these five tracks – don’t feel short-changed: the shortest one is over eight minutes long – you’ll find rock’s most forward-thinking band at their most uninhibited…

Towards the end of the 19th century, ´several composers were taking a new interest in folk music. Folk tunes, or imitations of them, had previously mainly been used in order to provide ‘local colour’ or as a way of catering to nationalist sentiments, but it was now seen as a means to revitalize art music itself, opening up for new possibilities in terms of rhythm and harmony as well as melody. At the forefront of this development was Béla Bartók, who also considered the use of folk elements as a tool to transcend boundaries – to achieve a ‘brotherhood of peoples’.

Can Live in Aston 1977, the latest in an ongoing series of Can album releases focusing on the band’s live performances, is set for release on vinyl, CD and digitally on 31 May 2024 via Mute and Future Days.

The band’s line up for this legendary 1975 performance features all four original members—Irmin Schmidt on keys, Jaki Leibezeit on drums, Michel Karoli on guitar, and Holger Czukay on bass. Can Live in Stuttgart 1975 is the first in a series of Can live concerts available in full for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats. Originally recorded on tape, these carefully restored live albums will comprise the entirety of each show in the format of a story with a beginning, middle and end, with Can’s performances taking on a life of their own.

When the studio of ever-groundbreaking Krautrock pioneers Can was sold to Germany's Rock n' Pop Museum, the entire space was disassembled and moved, and in the process, reels and reels of poorly marked and seemingly forgotten tapes were found buried amid other detritus in the studio. These tapes held over 30 hours of unreleased music from Can spanning a nine-year period and including work from both vocalists Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki. Edited down to just over three hours, The Lost Tapes still includes an extensive amount of unheard studio, live, and soundtrack work from the band, and at its heights is as revelatory and brilliant as the best material on their well-loved albums…

Future Days (1973). On Future Days, Can fully explored the ambient direction they had introduced into their sound on the previous year's Ege Bamyasi, and in the process created a landmark in European electronic music. Where Ege Bamyasi had played fast and loose with elements of rock song structure, Future Days dispensed with these elements altogether, creating hazy, expansive soundscapes dominated by percolating rhythms and evocative layers of keys. Vocalist Damo Suzuki turns in his final and most inspired performance with the band. His singing, which takes the form here of a rhythmic, nonsensical murmur, is all minimal texture and shading. Apart from the delightfully concise single "Moonshake," the album is comprised of just three long atmospheric pieces of music…