Can - Tim Can Alley (1975)

As I mentioned in the recent 'Finished?' post, after Damo Suzuki left Can there were a number of other vocalists who rehearsed and played live with them before they added Rosko Gee and Reebop to the core line up, but there was one that you would never have thought of in a thousand years - folk-singer Tim Hardin. He joined their ranks for a while at the tail end of 1975, and a trio of recordings survive from their time together, one being a rehearsal and the second a live improvised track, both from a gig at the Hatfield Polytechnic on 21 November 1975, while the third is a soundcheck recorded at the Drury Lane Theatre, London two days later. Their collaboration was very short-lived, as according to author Rob Young in the book 'All Gates Open: The Story Of Can', a huge argument between Hardin and Can occurred after the London concert, during which Hardin threw a television set through a car's windshield, and that was the end of their relationship. It's astounding enough that they got together in the first place, but even more so that 40 minutes of music survives after nearly fifty years, and so here it is, titled after one of my worst ever puns.

Track listing

01 Soundcheck (recorded at Drury Lane, London 23 November 1975)
02 Morning Glory (recorded at Hatfield Polytechnic 21 November 1975)
03 Rehearsal (recorded at Hatfield Polytechnic 21 November 1975)

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.

Can - Cannibalisms (1971)

It's well-known that Can used to set the recorder going every time they decided to play together, and previously unheard tapes have been surfacing for years, so here is an album of early recordings, two from the Malcolm Mooney era and one from Damo Suzuki's time with the band. 'Upduff's Birth' is very much as the title suggests, and is the full instrumental take of what was pared down to become 'Mother Upduff' for inclusion on the 1974 compilation 'Limited Edition', and this is followed by an alternate take of 'Man Named Joe' with Mooney on vocals, which later appeared in 1981 on 'Delay 68'. As the title suggests, 'Delay '68' was a belated issue of Can's very first album, then called 'Prepared To Meet Thy Pnoom', which no record company was prepared to release to the world at the time. Lastly, we have 'Tagothrowaway', which is exactly what it says on the tin - an out-take from the 'Tago Mago' sessions which was discarded when the final track listing was being put together. There might only be three tracks, but it's 55-minutes of classic Can, which any fan of the band needs to hear.     

Track listing

01 Upduff's Birth (studio 1968)
02 Man Named Joe (alternate take 1968)
03 Tagothrowaway ('Tago Mago' out-take 1971)

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

Can - Soup (1973)

I don't tend to post live albums on the site, leaving that to others who concentrate on live bootlegs, but I'm posting this one as it's an important recording and there doesn't seem to be a definitive version of it out there, with some just having two tracks, and others with varying song titles. The band's gig at Edinburgh's Empire Theatre on 25th August 1973 was the last with vocalist Damo Suzuki, and so was a significant concert for the band. Luckily it was recorded in very good quality, and the most authoritative notes I found suggest that some of it might have come from Holger Czukay's own recording, which he made of most of the band's live performances. There is also an audience recording, noticeably different as you can hear audience talk and applause, and the best quality version looks to be a skillfully edited combination of the two sources. Both agree that the first song is 'Soup', but the second track has a couple of titles, either 'Bel Air' or 'Stone Strike', but I tend to favour the former as you can clearly hear this in the lyrics. The third track is 'Hakucho No Uto (Swan No Song)', but while the final two pieces are from the concert, they have vocals over-dubbed on them by Michiko Nakao. It appears that Nakao was Brian Eno's partner from 1971-1974, and she struck up a relationship with Can as a result of Eno's friendship with them. Holger Czukay invited her to the Wellerwist Studio in August 1975 to overdub some studio recordings, and she also added her vocals to these two songs. Unfortunately the un-dubbed versions don't seem to exist, so this is the best that we will get. I've made a few edits and crossfades to make the recording flow smoothly, and so hopefully this is the definitive version of one of the most important documents of the band's career. I first found this on the Ace Bootlegs site, where he'd made a clever cover for it, and so I've adapted his idea for mine, which has come out really well.    

Track listing 

01 Soup
02 Bel Air
03 Hakucho No Uta (Swan No Song)
04 Hot Day in Koeln
05 I'm Your Doll