Can - Finished? (1975)

After the recording of 'Future Days' in 1973, Damo Suzuki left Can in order to marry his German girlfriend, and become a Jehovah's Witness. Vocal duties were taken over by Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt, but after Suzuki's departure, fewer of Can's tracks featured vocals, as the band experimented with the ambient music it had begun with 'Future Days'. 'Soon Over Babaluma' from 1974 continued in the ambient style of 'Future Days', but with some of the abrasive edge of 'Tago Mago' and 'Ege Bamyasi', and in 1975 the band signed with Virgin Records in the UK and EMI/Harvest in West Germany, appearing the same year on BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in a memorable performance of 'Vernal Equinox', in which Schmidt played one keyboard section with a series of rapid karate chops. Their next album, 'Landed', was released in 1975, and this time vocals were performed by all four members of the band, but following its release Can started looking around for a new vocalist. Brian Eno's girlfriend at the time, Japanese photographer Michiko Nakao, was suggested, and so she went into the studio with Holger Czukay and overdubbed vocals of some previously recorded tracks, two from the band's gig at Edinburgh in 1973, and also on a 44-minute version of 'Unfinished' from the 'Landed' album, which now that it had a vocal track, we can re-name 'Finished?'. In the end they decided not to employ a new vocalist, and 1976's 'Flow Motion' saw them  moving towards a somewhat more conventional style, as their recording technology improved. The disco single 'I Want More', co-written by the band's live sound engineer Peter Gilmour, became Can's only hit record outside West Germany, reaching No 26 on the UK charts in October 1976. In 1977 Can was joined by former Traffic bassist Rosko Gee and percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah, both of whom provided vocals, and so a featured vocalist was no longer required. The two over-dubbed tracks from the Edinburgh gig have already been posted on my 'Soup' post by the band, so here is a one-track album from them, featuring Can with possible future vocalist Michiko Nakao. 

Track listing

01 Finished?

The cover uses a photo by Elena Jo Melanson.