Can mythology has always told how, in their early years, the group would play for hours at their Inner Space studios near Cologne, tapes rolling incessantly to capture those moments where their unearthly brand of telepathic alchemy flared into what the surviving members still describe as magic. Predating modern studio techniques, these highlights were edited into such epoch-making monoliths as Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days.
Inevitably, there were hours of off-cuts, some appearing on 1976’s Unlimited Edition set, but most just sat gathering dust in a cupboard. These recordings aren’t exactly “lost”, then, just overlooked until the studio was sold to the German Rock’n’Pop Museum a few years ago, then stashed in the Spoon archive. Wading through the unfiled tapes, many unmarked, group founder Irmin Schmidt and son-in-law Jono Podmore (aka Kumo of electronic purists Metamono) uncovered around 40 hours of material from 1968-76: an alternate history of this inestimably-influential group, including unreleased movie music, epic live excursions and alternate takes of revered classics.
Selections made, Podmore faced the gargantuan task of sculpting the rough diamonds into cohesive shape, using anything from intricate multi-layering to vintage technology. He emerged after many months with less than 10 per cent of the original aural mountain, but meticulously buffed into three CDs.
For long-time devotees who welcomed last year’s expanded Tago Mago as a rare treat, having this collection is like being handed the Holy Grail: an often jaw-dropping treasure trove as core musicians Schmidt, bassist Holger Czukay, drummer Jaki Liebezeit and guitarist Michael Karoli (who died in 2001), along with vocalists Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki, are displayed traversing the different phases of their ever-evolving sound.
The rollercoaster-style thrill ride commences with the intergalactic spy movie dynamics of 1970 film track Millionenspiel, before the cuts featuring bare-nerved New York stoner Mooney – who is darkly gripping, whether chillingly exposed on the bleak When Darkness Comes, relentlessly intoning Streetcar’s title word, crooning about Deadly Doris over jittery rock vamps or disgorging his parched human loop on another take of Soul Desert from 1970’s Soundtracks.
The already-encountered selections are also fascinating, Dead Pigeon Suite revisiting Vitamin C’s poignant coda melody as sweeping movie theme, while Podmore whittles down the sprawling jam which spawned Sing Swan Song on A Swan Is Born, one of the enigmatic Suzuki’s most stellar outings. Live performances capture the effortlessly merciless catharsis of Can at their peak, including a spectral Mushroom, edgily-syncopated One More Saturday Night, booming Networks Of Foam (from Drury Lane) and 16-minute Spoon driven to incandescent heights by Leibezeit’s locomotive drumming, sending Karoli into the stratosphere. Surreal strangeness and humour manifest on Blind Mirror Surf’s Sun Ra-on-Rohypnol dissonance and 1969’s The Agreement (live in the studio crapper); taut space-funk propulsion on the spectrally pulsing Barnacles and heavens-arcing music of the spheres on Abra Cada Braxas, while the delicate reflection of Private Nocturnal represents the contrastingly pastoral Soon Over Babaluna.
All this magic has been buried on a shelf for decades, taking an acolyte such as Podmore to hone it into a priceless monument-cum- tribute to one of the 20th Century’s greatest groups. For even the most hardened Can devotee, it’s an extraordinarily revelatory experience all over again.
