★Spoon Records
Electro Violet
Electro Violet is the career spanning retrospective from legendary avant-garde composer Irmin Schmidt, out on Mute / Spoon Records on 20 November 2015. This 12 CD deluxe box set takes you on a journey through his entire solo work from 1981 to the present day. Irmin Schmidt is a founding member of Can, the German band whose unparalleled genius remains unquestioned, timeless and immeasurably influential. When all Can members decided to part and explore new sounds, Irmin teamed up with Swiss jazz a…
Tago Mago
** Remastered edition on translucent orange vinyl ** You couldn't do much better than beginning with 1971's Tago Mago, freshly reissued in vinyl format. It's a colossus of an album, the product of a band that was thinking huge, pushing itself to its limits, and devoted to breaking open its own understanding of what rock music could be. The core of Can was four German musicians from wildly different backgrounds-- when they initially came together in 1968, two of them had studied with composer Kar…
Ege Bamyasi
**Limited heavyweight green vinyl LP** The group's fourth album, from 1972, originally issued by United Artists. "The follow-up to Tago Mago is only lesser in terms of being shorter; otherwise the Can collective delivers its expected musical recombination act with the usual power and ability. Liebezeit, at once minimalist and utterly funky, provides another base of key beat action for everyone to go off on -- from the buried, lengthy solos by Karoli on 'Pinch' to the rhythm box/keyboard action o…
Landed
If you got a quid for each time Can were referenced as influencing a given band or artist, we'd have taken the Bank Of England down years ago. Remastered to a clarity that will come as a shock to those who've been suffering the original cd releases, 1975's 'Landed' is notable for marking the return to Can's debut line-up (barring Malcolm Mooney of course), following the love-sick Damo Suzuki's departure. Their 7th full-length release, 'Landed' also saw the band getting their mitts on a 16 track …
Flow Motion
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. That fluke hit aside, the charge doesn't really hold water. There's a ne…
Saw Delight
1977's Saw Delight is the German progressive group's farewell. Percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah and bassist Rosko Gee from a late-era lineup of Traffic to add a sort of Afro-Cuban jazz feel to their sound. Similarly, Rosko Gee's handling of the bass duties (which he performs superbly throughout, adding an almost Mingus-like rhythmic intensity to even the loosest songs) frees Holger Czukay to add electronics and sound effects to the proceedings. The opening "Don't Say No" recalls the controlled fu…
Out Of Reach
All but unknown to most but the most hardcore Can fanatics, 1978's Out of Reach is one of the group's rarest albums. This is due in large part to the fact that bassist Holger Czukay left the band before the recording sessions, and drummer Jaki Liebezeit has a greatly reduced role, leaving most of the rhythm duties to percussionist-come-lately Reebop Kwaku Baah. As on the group's proper swan song, 1977's Saw Delight, new bassist Rosko Gee largely leads the group, and his jazz-inflected playing is…
Can 1978
Mute brought back more Can than any krautrock fan could possibly handle with the 'Can Vinyl Box', which featured seventeen Can records reissued in one bundle; now each record is stepping out on its own. The self-titled 'Can' is the band's eleventh record, released in 1978 and unfamiliar to most. Like 'Out of Reach', little of the music, if any at all, is attributed to the band's founding member Holger Czukay, who stepped back in the writing and composing department. It would be Can’s last album …
Rite Time
'Rite Time’ was originally released in 1986 and has been evaluated as one of the classic Can albums. "An unexpected reunion from Can (made even more unexpected by the presence of original singer Malcolm Mooney, who left the band in 1969), 1989's Rite Time is in large part a return to form for the group, especially when one considers how weak Can's last few '70s albums were. Wisely, the quintet doesn't try to replicate the sound they created over two decades before on albums like Monster Movie. I…
Anthology (Remastered)
Having originally surfaced in 1994, Can's Anthology still serves as a pretty comprehensive, wide-ranging sampler of the band's key works, and the material's never sounded better - benefiting from a beautiful remastering treatment. Spanning Can's work from 1969's Monster Movie right up to 1991's soundtrack for the Wim Wenders film Until The End Of The World this two-disc compilation takes in a variety of line-ups, with the first disc drawing from the band's work up until 1974, with particular emp…
Can
Mute brought back more Can than any krautrock fan could possibly handle with the 'Can Vinyl Box', which featured seventeen Can records reissued in one bundle; now each record is stepping out on its own. The self-titled 'Can' is the band's eleventh record, released in 1978 and unfamiliar to most. Like 'Out of Reach', little of the music, if any at all, is attributed to the band's founding member Holger Czukay, who stepped back in the writing and composing department.
Soon over Babaluma
With Suzuki departed, vocal responsibilities were now split between Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt. Wisely, neither try to clone Mooney or Suzuki, instead aiming for their own low-key way around things. The guitarist half speaks/half whispers his lines on the opening groover, "Dizzy Dizzy," while on "Come Sta, La Luna" Schmidt uses a higher pitch that is mostly buried in the background. Holger Czukay sounds like he's throwing in some odd movie samples on that particular track, though perhaps i…
Unlimited Edition
Most bands stick out a 'unreleased and bonus bollocks' album when they're bereft of new ideas and need some filthy lucre to keep the country estate fully stocked with coy carp. You get the feeling this was the last thing on Can's mind. Having amassed a serious quantity of recordings between 1969 and '74, 'Unlimited Edition' (now giving a thorough spring-clean for this remastered release) was put out on a 15,000 only run to proceed 'Soon Over Babaluma', portraying a much rougher Can that tended n…
The Lost Tapes
Spoon Records and Mute are delighted to announce the release of Can -- The Lost Tapes, the long awaited box set of unreleased studio, soundtrack and live material. The Lost Tapes was curated by Irmin Schmidt and Daniel Miller, compiled by Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore, and edited by Jono Podmore. When the legendary Can studio in Weilerswist was sold to the German Rock N Pop Museum, they bought everything, including the army mattresses that covered the walls for sound protection, and reloc…
Nowhere
1998 reissue, orginally released in 1984. A combination of spacey electro-pop, dub and dark avant-rock influences, Phantom Band is one of the most authentically weird, essential and yet surprisingly overlooked organisms orbiting the Can universe. This is the third and final album from the project, masterminded by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit, featuring Dominik von Senger (Dunkelziffer, Damo Suzuki Band/Network) on guitar, Helmut Zerlett (e.g. Dunkelziffer, Unknown Cases) on keyboards and Sheldon A…
Delay
Probably the rawest krautrock release. Malcolm Mooney's singing is trance inducing yet soulful, keeping the songs together when everyone else seems to freak out. Nineteen Century Man an it's over the top distortion, combined with the 'Inner Space' mantra, and it's half a minute jazz impromptu prelude Pnoom, push the listener into bliss every time.
Soon Over Babaluna
With Suzuki departed, vocal responsibilities were now split between Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt. Wisely, neither try to clone Mooney or Suzuki, instead aiming for their own low-key way around things. The guitarist half speaks/half whispers his lines on the opening groover, "Dizzy Dizzy," while on "Come Sta, La Luna" Schmidt uses a higher pitch that is mostly buried in the background. Holger Czukay sounds like he's throwing in some odd movie samples on that particular track, though perhaps i…
dvd
he Can saga continues with the 35th anniversary of the founding of the group, which will be marked by the release of the Can DVD. Containing access to everything you could ever want to know about Can with rare insights into the personalities and methodology of the groundbreaking and legendary German band, the 2 x DVD and 1 x CD set features: Can Documentary, Can Free Concert, Can Notes, Can solo recordings, New 5.1 mixes of classic Can tracks and many extra features. The classic Can Documentary …