Review Summary: A brilliant debut, to be sure. CAN have Malcolm Mooney on vocals here, but he lays the groundwork Damo Suzuki would so effectively shatter.
Of the six CAN albums I own, this is the last one I came around to, but, as it turns out, it also hit me
harder than many of the others. CAN show that they are an amazing band yet again with their first
released album (their actual debut was Delay 1968, which, as the title suggests, was recorded in 1968
but wasn’t released until the 1980s). They had already confirmed themselves as my favorite band with
their three Damo Suzuki albums, Tago Mago (my favorite album by any band), Ege Bamyasi, and Future
Days (I don’t own their fourth Damo Suzuki album, Soundtracks, which also features Malcolm Mooney on
vocals for some tracks). With their two follow up albums, Soon Over Babaluma and Landed, they
established themselves as a band that wasn’t dependent on Damo Suzuki to make good music (but also
that they did need him to make great music --- well, at least until I found this album). And, finally, once
I “got” Monster Movie, they showed that they were amazing right from the start, and I also realized that,
while Damo Suzuki is still the greatest vocalist I know, he does have competition, namely Malcolm
Mooney, an African American who is featured as vocalist on this album, Delay 1968, and part of
Soundtracks, after which he had to leave the band because of a mental illness.
One thing I can say is that CAN vocals are probably the hardest part of their music for newcomers to
digest. After the Damo Suzuki era, they were just plain bad, but during the Mooney and Damo periods,
they were even more inaccessible. Damo Suzuki seemed light and indistinct at times, and you have been
blessed with a great talent if you can understand what he’s saying half the time (even when he is
speaking English), and yet without him, the music lost much of its magic. Malcolm Mooney, who sang in
a completely different style from Suzuki, had much the same effect. He is off-putting to newcomers to
the band, and yet he is absolutely essential, for without him, the music just doesn’t hold up nearly as
well. Unlike Damo Suzuki, however, he largely croaked (generally out of tune), but he’s just as good at
what he did as Damo was.
But, I’m sure, you’re saying, enough about the vocals. They can’t be that important, can they? Well,
actually, they can, but the music itself is just as good. From what I said in the previous paragraph, you
might have gotten the impression that the music doesn’t hold up on its own. That’s not true at all. CAN
was almost a super group (much in the same sense of Yes) as far as musicianship goes. Jaki Liebezeit is
the greatest drummer I know. While perhaps not the most technically skilled, his pounding rhythms,
which went in direct opposition to his jazz background, provided the core to most CAN songs (if not all).
And you can have your John McLaughlin everyday as far as I care, so long as I get Michael Karoli.
Michael Karoli, and I’m saying this in all seriousness, could noodle better than anybody else. His main
contribution to the band is generally psychedelic noodling coming in over the top. Except that, unlike
most noodling, his fits the songs perfectly, adding to them rather than detracting. Now who says that
focus is important? Holger Czukay’s bass will pound through your entire body if you listen to this album
on headphones (I can feel myself vibrating), and, he is actually the basis for knowing if you’re listening
to this album loudly enough. Basically, if, when his bass comes in after ten seconds of Father Cannot
Yell, you cannot feel it in every inch of your body, you aren’t listening to it loudly enough. And, finally,
Irmin Schmidt. His keyboards were generally strange and avant-garde, often rather minimalist, but I
cannot imagine CAN without him, or, indeed, with anyone else. The final ingredient, though, the one
that holds this all together, I haven’t yet mentioned. And that is the fact that this band simply gels.
They know what the other band members are going to do, and they can figure out the right thing to do at
the right time.
The result is a string of amazing albums, starting with 1969’s Monster Movie, which, along with Amon
Duul II’s Phallus Dei, started the Krautrock style of music, and still stands as one of its defining albums.
In addition to influencing all of future Krautrock, however, it also had much wider influences. All
psychedelia has to find its roots in this majestic album. Even punk, that genre we all despise, found its
roots here. Just listen to Outside My Door and you’ll see that punk was good at first… when Germans
were doing it in the late 60s. The rest of the songs are great as well (Outside My Door is actually, in a
purely relative sense, the weakest song on here, though none of them are weak at all). Father Cannot
Yell has the most energy of any song I know bar none. It is absolutely relentless, never resting for an
instant. Mary Mary So Contrary is calmer, allowing Malcolm Mooney to stand out with his emotive and
expressive vocals that rival Damo’s in every way (that is high, high, high praise coming from me). And,
last but not least, Yoo Doo Right, a crazy twenty-minute long improvisation that is simply beyond belief
in terms of how good it is. In fact (though, given the album’s quality, you wouldn’t believe it), this entire
album is composed of improvisations that were later edited in the studio. Despite this, the band show
far more discipline and knowledge of what’s going on than many bands do in purely composed songs. As
I said before, the band truly gels, and that’s what makes them so great. That is never more evident than
on this album.
As far as CAN goes, this album is second only to Tago Mago and Future Days. It’s raw and rough, but it’s absolutely
essential. I wouldn’t suggest starting here with CAN (Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi, and Future Days are all
better bets for beginners), but this is one of progressive rock’s defining albums (and, more specifically,
one of Krautrock’s defining albums), and belongs in every prog rock collection. Keep in mind that this
was the same year as King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King. This album is just as inventive
and just as progressive as that prog landmark, and, at least in my mind, sounds better, too. Highly
recommended. If are a fan of challenging and adventurous music, you cannot go wrong here.
