Can: Damo Suzuki (vocals); Michael Karoli (guitar); Irmin Schmidt (keyboards); Holger Czukay (bass); Jaki Liebezeit (drums).
Can: Damo Suzuki (vocals); Michael Karoli (guitar); Irmin Schmidt (keyboards); Holger Czukay (bass instrument); Jaki Liebezeit (drums).
Can were one of the most influential bands to emerge from Europe in the 70s, and this 1972 masterpiece marked a crucial stage in the development from the edgy experimentalism of their earlier albums to the softer ambience of their later work. 'Soup' and 'Pinch' were reminders of their wilder excesses, but on tracks such as 'One More Night' and 'Sing Swan Song' they demonstrated that they could be equally inventive within tighter song structures. 'I'm So Green' and 'Spoon' were almost conventional pop songs, to the extent that the latter provided the band with an unexpected chart-topper in their native Germany.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.92) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[O]riginal, prescient and magnetic."
Spin (p.87) - "[A] funky peak that fueled post-punk."
Spin (01/04, p.48) - "...[Suzuki] mewls, whispers, moans and babbles over Jaki Liebezeit's awesome robo-funk drumming, while the other guys provide free-flying moral support..."
Uncut (p.129) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]he music explodes with all the intensity of Miles Davis' electric units of the same period."
The Wire (p.62) - "[T]he record that saw Can jettisoning ballast from their sound in a quest for fluid sonodynamics."
Q (Magazine) (p.141) - "[With an] air of out-there cool, chiefly thanks to Liebezeit's incisive grooves and the otherworldly aura of Suzuki's breathless, hard-to-decipher vocals."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.153) - "By EGE BAMYASI they were coupling avant-garde urges to a more melodic, groove-based formula that sill accommodated vocalist Damo Suzuki's bizarre phrasing and lyrics..."
