Limited Vinyl Box Set, includes 5 x 180GM vinyl LP's, 28 page 12" booklet and a 24" poster - includes 30 previously unreleased tracks* "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 relocated it to Gronau. Whilst dismantling the studio, master tapes were found and stored in the Spoon archive. With barely legible labelling, no one was sure what was on these until Irmin Schmidt and long time collaborator Jono Podmore started to go through over 30 hours of music. What they found was years of archived material, not outtakes, but rather tracks which had been shelved for a variety of reasons - soundtracks to films that were never released and tracks that didn't make it onto the final versions of albums due to space.Irmin Schmidt explains "Obviously the tapes weren't really lost, but were left in the cupboards of the studio archives for so long everybody just forgot about them. Everybody except Hildegard, who watches over Can and its work like the dragon over the gold of the Nibelungen and doesn't allow forgetting." The final cut of tracks, dating from 1968-1977, features studio material recorded at Schloss Nörvenich and Can Studio, Weilerswist with the Can line up of Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitars, Jaki Liebezeit on drums and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards, and on most tracks, vocals from Malcolm Mooney or Damo Suzuki. Can's influence is well known and far-reaching and the impact they made on music is felt today as keenly as it ever has been. They themselves have always been impossible to classify and reflecting this, the scope of artists who in recent years have cited Can as a major influence is varied from John Lydon to Radiohead, The Fall to Portishead. With a phenomenal canon of work that includes Tago Mago, which celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2011 (the anniversary release was awarded 5* from MOJO, Uncut, Artrocker and Record Collector), The Lost Tapes is an opportunity to hear unreleased material from this iconic band - whoever thought that would be possible? Sifted from more than 50 hours of unheard live and Inner Space studio tapes, this beautifully boxed three disc set collected glorious, gravity-defying and occasionally OTT moments from the Cologne collective’s 1968–75 heyday. From onstage freakouts to taut motorik funk, there was material here easily the equal of much of their official album canon. We said: “Can’s ‘all gates open’ sound was anything but sprawling: it takes a high degree of control and self-discipline to get to where they got to... a welcome re-opening of the gates.”