Can - Ege Bamyasi (1972)

My previous Can post attracted a comment from flippikat suggesting that it might a nice idea to put together an expanded edition of the band's fourth studio album 'Ege Bamyasi', using tracks from the same year which could be found on their 'Lost Tapes' album. The original album contains the single 'Spoon', which charted in the Top 10 in Germany, largely because of its use as the theme of a German TV thriller mini-series called 'Das Messer' (The Knife). With the single being added to the album at the last minute as the band were short of material and had a deadline looming, it helped to make 'Ege Bamyasi' one of Can's most popular releases, and over the years its reputation has grown, with it now being considered their artistic high-point as well. It was a good idea, so I dug out my copies of both albums, selected the 'Lost Tapes' tracks from 1972 and set about slotting them into the original album. After a bit of mixing and matching I'd come up with a track listing that seemed to work, so I started thinking about a cover for it. While googling 'Can', I came across a post by flippikat on the Steve Hoffman site where they'd actually put together a possible track listing for an expanded 'Ege Bamyasi', and not surprisingly it was very close to mine. We'd even both omitted one track, 'Evening All Day', in my case because I considered it a bit dull compared to the other tracks, and in flippikat's case I believe it was so that they could compile it into four vinyl sides of around eighteen minutes each. Whatever our reasons, we agreed on the final song selection, so I decided to use flippikat's sequencing for the final album. I think it works well, as some tracks in the final quarter use themes from the original album, calling back to earlier pieces as a sort of reprise. I did find a cover for it from the excellent Behance Gallery site, which has cartoon versions of a large selection of classic album sleeves (do check it out), and so here is a double-album version of one of the classic Krautrock albums of the early 70's.

Track listing

01 Pinch
02 Messer, Scissors, Fork & Light
03 Sing Swan Song
04 Vitamin C
05 Spoon
06 One More Night
07 Bubble Rap
08 Soup
09 I'm so Green
10 A Swan is Born 
11 Dead Pigeon Suite