by Will Henriksen (@will___h___)
In the 50+ years since Can’s formation, live releases by the idolized and hugely influential “krautrock” group haven’t exactly been plentiful. This is likely by design. In the comfort of their Inner Space studio, Can built songs like sculptures. They jammed, and jammed, and jammed, until bassist/engineer Holger Czukay chopped, looped, and bent 2-track full-band recordings into something muscular and mutant. Few contemporaries (besides Miles Davis and producer Teo Macero in their electric period) offered anything approaching the alchemical editing process they appeared to have perfected by 1971’s Tago Mago.
Unlike their main canon, documents of Can’s live performances offer a glimpse of the group pre-edit. They give no sign of a set list - songs pick up gradually, often one musician at a time, and dissipate just as organically. The lack of delineation is apparent in Stuttgart 1975’s tracklist: “Ein,” “Zwei,” “Drei,” “Vier,” “Fünf” - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The set is entirely instrumental, as were most of their performances following the departure of vocalist Damo Suzuki. Albums like 1975’s Landed featured overdubbed vocals as well as guitarist Michael Karoli’s violin and Irmin Schmidt’s small army of keyboards. In concert they stuck to their primary instruments, and the results are much starker.
On this newly released set, echoes of familiar tracks like “Bel Air” from Future Days and “Dizzy Dizzy” from Soon Over Babaluma spill into improvisations and reharmonizations. “Drei,” the definite centerpiece, starts to reach its energetic peak when Irmin Schmidt makes an unexpected shift from organ to ringing synthesizer. Such shifts in color would have almost been expected on their albums, but create genuine shock halfway through this performance. From its lurching beginning to its telepathically tight conclusion, there’s an amazing flow going on for these ninety minutes which makes it worth owning even if you weren’t sold on the previously released Can Live 1971-1977. The band’s energy rarely falters here - this was an excellent choice of a show to release, and has fortunately been announced as the first of a series.