Can Albums (15)
What The Critics Say
This CD gathers Can tracks from various professional recordings, most of which include vocalist Damo Suzuki. "Up the Bakerloo" is an earlier version of the track from The Peel Sessions, though twice as long. It's one of those pieces where Damo Suzuki spouts endlessly free-form vocals in Japanese, German, and English, while the group sets up a steady but slowly evolving groove that effortlessly picks up speed or slows down. "Paperhouse," recorded from German TV, lacks some of the fidelity and texture of the studio version from Tago Mago, but is even more energetic. "Entropy," from a live show in 1970, is another long piece with Suzuki babbling while Karoli's guitar solos blast all over the place. "Little Star," with Can's earlier vocalist, Malcolm Mooney, sounds more raw even than the version on Delay...1968. Mooney's voice is harsher, and toward the end the background effects are much louder. The final two cuts are B-sides of singles that never made it on a proper album. "Turtles Have Short Legs" welds the Can style onto a cheesy pop song format that is not too successful. "Shikaku Maru Ten" is far more interesting, with vaguely ethnic rhythms and chanted vocals, and, like many Can tracks, it manages to be both laid-back and energetic at the same time. On the whole, Radio Waves offers a good selection of rare Can tracks, most of them quite well recorded. ~ Rolf Semprebon, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
An unexpected reunion from Can (made even more unexpected by the presence of original singer Malcolm Mooney, who left the band in 1969), 1989's Rite Time is in large part a return to form for the group, especially when one considers how weak Can's last few '70s albums were. Wisely, the quintet doesn't try to replicate the sound they created over two decades before on albums like Monster Movie. Instead, Mooney and company make Rite Time a document of where they're at musically at the time. In short, it's funkier ("Give the Drummer Some"), funnier ("Hoolah Hoolah," which takes that old schoolyard rhyme about how they don't wear pants on the other side of France as the jumping-off point for its melody and lyrics), and more abstractly ambient (the elliptical closer "In the Distance Lies the Future") than before. Rite Time doesn't have the rubbery, polyrhythmic intensity of classic Can albums like Ege Bamyasi or Future Days, but it's a solidly listenable album that, unlike the majority of reunion albums, doesn't soil the memory of the band. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
This one suffers without bassist Holger Czukay, and from overblown pop keyboards. ~ Myles Boisen, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
This effort is a nice mix of trance/groove instrumentals, ethnic sampling, and silly vocals in English. ~ Myles Boisen, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The second of Can's three Virgin albums, 1976's Flow Motion, is a divisive record in the group's canon. It was their most commercially successful album (the opening track, "I Want More," was released as a single in the U.K. and actually charted, thanks to its smoothly percolating near-disco groove, which makes it resemble a late-period Roxy Music hit), but many fans dismiss it as the group's feint toward commercial success. That fluke hit aside, the charge doesn't really hold water. There's a newfound smoothness to the group's interplay, which Holger Czukay attributes to an interest in reggae music, yet the Caribbean influence is quite subtle; only on "Cascade Waltz" and, particularly, "Laugh Till You Cry Live Till You Die" is there a noticeable reggae lilt. The two highlight tracks are "Smoke," a wild, Moroccan-styled entry in their ever-growing Ethnological Forgery Series, and the limber title track, a ten-and-a-half minute instrumental groove that recalls the best moments of earlier albums like Soon Over Babaluma. By no means one of Can's very best albums, Flow Motion deserves better than its poor reputation in some circles. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Another erratic waxing features some great guitar and Babaluma-style grooves, but is unfocused on the whole. ~ Myles Boisen, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With Suzuki departed, vocal responsibilities were now split between Karoli and Schmidt. Wisely, neither try to clone Mooney or Suzuki, instead aiming for their own low-key way around things. The guitarist half speaks/half whispers his lines on the opening groover, "Dizzy Dizzy," while on "Come Sta, La Luna" Schmidt uses a higher pitch that is mostly buried in the background. Czukay sounds like he's throwing in some odd movie samples on that particular track, though perhaps it's just heavy flanging on Schmidt's vocals. Karoli's guitar achieves near-flamenco levels on the song, an attractive development that matches up nicely with the slightly lighter and jazzier rhythms the band comes up with on tracks like "Splash." Also, his violin work -- uncredited on earlier releases -- is a bit more prominent here. Musically, if things are a touch less intense on Babaluma, the sense of a band perfectly living in each other's musical pocket and able to react on a dime hasn't changed at all. "Chain Reaction," the longest track on the album, shows that the combination of lengthy jam and slight relaxation actually can go together rather well. After an initial four minutes of quicker pulsing and rhythm (which sounds partly machine provided), things downshift into a slower vocal section before firing up again; Karoli's blistering guitar work at this point is striking to behold. "Chain Reaction" bleeds into Babaluma's final song, "Quantum Physics," a more ominous piece with Czukay's bass closer to the fore, shaded by Schmidt's work and sometimes accompanied by Liebezeit. It makes for a nicely mysterious conclusion to the album. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
