Can Tago Mago Live

Tago Mago (1971). With the band in full artistic flower and Damo Suzuki's sometimes moody, sometimes frenetic speak/sing/shrieking in full effect, Can released not merely one of the best Krautrock albums of all time, but one of the best albums ever, period. Tago Mago is that rarity of the early '70s, a double album without a wasted note, ranging from sweetly gentle float to full-on monster grooves. "Paperhouse" starts things brilliantly, beginning with a low-key chime and beat, before amping up into a rumbling roll in the midsection, then calming down again before one last blast. Both "Mushroom" and "Oh Yeah," the latter with Schmidt filling out the quicker pace with nicely spooky keyboards, continue the fine vibe. After that, though, come the huge highlights - three long examples of Can at its absolute best…

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…

Landed (1975). Stylistically the music on "Stranded" is very similar to the music on "Soon Over Babaluma (1974)". It´s just a bit more easily accessible. "Stranded" is still characterized by the trademark repetitive beats and both "Vernal Equinox", and the 13:20 minutes long closing track "Unfinished", feature the usual psychadelic experiments, as do the other shorter tracks, albeit in smaller doses.
Flow Motion (1976). The second of Can's three Virgin albums, 1976's Flow Motion, is a divisive record in the group's canon. It was their most commercially successful album (the opening track, "I Want More," was released as a single in the U.K. and actually charted, thanks to its smoothly percolating near-disco groove, which makes it resemble a late-period Roxy Music hit), but many fans dismiss it as the group's feint toward commercial success…

Can - Monster Movie (1969). Though Monster Movie was the first full-length album in what would become a sprawling and often genre-defining discography, Can were on a level well ahead of the curve even in their most formative days. Recorded and released in 1969, Monster Movie bears many of the trademarks that Can would explore as they went on, as well as elements that would set the scene for the burgeoning Krautrock movement. This would be the only album Can's first singer Malcolm Mooney would sing the entirety of, as he was replaced by Damo Suzuki by the time of 1970's Soundtracks, leaving the band after going through a highly unstable time…

Cannibalism 1 (1978). Given the cohesion of the group's studio albums, Can's songs work surprisingly well in compilation form, as evidenced by Cannibalism 1, a collection of tracks taken from the first six years of the group's existence. Covering ground from 1969's Monster Movie to 1974's Soon Over Babaluma (although nothing from 1973's superb Future Days makes the cut), the sampler compiles many of the group's high points (including "Father Cannot Yell," "She Brings the Rain," "Mushroom," and "Soup"), and offers a thorough overview of Can's eclectic musical history to date, even if the abridged versions of cuts like "Mother Sky," "Aumgn," and "Halleluhwah" don't measure up to the full-length renditions featured on the original albums…

Can's experimentation and willingness to take unprecedented risks touched every aspect of their music. The Krautrock legends' innovative approach to studio albums produced some of the most exciting results of the entire era of rock music they existed in, but the foundation for their studio brilliance was in their otherworldly powers as a live entity. Live in Stuttgart 1975 captures some of this live magic, documenting the entirety of a 90-minute-long, fully improvised concert made up of five lengthy jams.

Crammed with over two hours worth of Can performing during their peak years this selection of live cuts shows just what a dazzlingly inventive outfit the German free-form pioneers could be outside of their natural studio habitat. Like many innovative groups of the 1960's and 1970's Can live were a remarkably different beast from their studio persona, many of the tracks captured on this two-disc compilation either completely unrecognisable from their original album form or simply the result of some impromptu jams between the five members…

Always at least three steps ahead of contemporary popular music, Can were the leading avant-garde rock group of the '70s. From their very beginning, their music didn't conform to any commonly held notions about rock & roll – not even those of the countercultures. Inspired more by 20th century classical music than Chuck Berry, their closest contemporaries were Frank Zappa or possibly the Velvet Underground. Yet their music was more serious and inaccessible than either of those artists. Instead of recording tight pop songs or satire, Can experimented with noise, synthesizers, non-traditional music, cut-and-paste techniques, and, most importantly, electronic music; each album marked a significant step forward from the previous album, investigating new territories that other rock bands weren't interested in exploring…