1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 224. Can – Tago Mago (1971)

 

I’ve no idea why I’ve never heard of Can before; it seems like they would have been a prime choice for the musical tastes of some of my university house-mates.  

Can are a German group, at this stage fronted by Japanese singer Kenji “Damo” Suzuki. Well, I say “singer”, he’s more a “vocal performer”, but more on that shortly. The album starts off conventionally enough, with a kind of psychedelia/funk/rock fusion feel. The second track Mushroom is a kind of lo-fi trip-hop beat with lyrics that could in equal part be about nuclear war and psilocybin (and I’m sure the ambiguity is entirely intentional). The track Oh Yeah took me a little to Happy Mondays, and there’s a bit of a feel of Nineties Indie and Trance throughout Disc One of the album – the likes of The Orb and Spiritualised came into my head too.  

Then we begin to descend into madness. Halleluhwah is an 18-minute odyssey with a driving drum beat maintained with mechanical precision throughout by drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Although there is mention of an early drum machine in use, this is not a machine. It is a man-machine.

Unlike many avant-jazz/prog pieces, this one doesn’t wear out its welcome, but it does feel like a piece of music to lose yourself in, probably involving some kind of chemical enhancement. Nineties reference for this one: Flowered Up’s epic journey Weekender. But don’t, whatever you do, go tripping to the next track, Aumgn. It’s a sound-collage of mostly deep and disturbing notes, echoing and gravelly. This is the only track without Suzuki providing vocals, instead keyboardist Irmin Schmidt emits deep moans that shade into vocal fry; it sounds like the kind of soundtrack you get in modern art installations featuring projected images of rocks, lava, and broken concrete. 

Peking O is another sound-collage kind of piece, but a bit more inherently musical. For me, I’d say these were tracks to hear once and probably not come back to, but I loved the rest of the album. Suzuki, as I said, doesn’t so much sing as vocalise; he tends to be quite low in the mix and the effect is that the lyrics are less lyrics and more like scat; to return to the Nineties feel again, it’s a bit like the vocals for The Cocteau Twins; the words don’t matter, it’s the melody or rhythm of the voice that does.  

Definitely give Disc One a go. Disc Two, approach at your own risk (but Halleluhwah is good and trancy). It’s still easier than Trout Mask Replica though.