Can: Monster Movie 1969 + Future Days 1973 + Soon Over Babaluma 1974

Influential German group Can brought an improvisatory approach to rock music, prioritizing textural

experimentation and rhythmic interplay over pop hooks.
Though its members came from avant-garde classical and jazz backgrounds, they embraced the energy and hypnotic rhythms of funk and psychedelic rock, producing a spontaneous yet highly disciplined form of groove-heavy experimental music.
                                                             

Can's albums were typically boiled down from lengthy, intense studio improvisation sessions, similar to Teo Macero's editing techniques on Miles Davis' late-'60s work, and the results ranged from sprawling sidelong epics to songs potent enough to be released as 45s, even making the pop charts on two occasions.

MONSTER MOVIE   AUGUST 1969

                                                 

Monster Movie is the debut studio album by German rock band Can, released in August 1969 by Music Factory and Liberty Records.
Monster Movie brings together elements of psychedelic rock, blues, free jazz, world music and other styles, the influence of the Velvet Underground being particularly obvious on the opening track "Father Cannot Yell". The use of improvisation, experimentation, editing and layering of sounds set a standard for Can's subsequent albums in the early 1970s, which were seminal to the freewheeling avant-garde style dubbed "krautrock" by the British music press. The 20-minute jam "Yoo Doo Right" was pared down from 6 hours' taping, while the lyrics of "Mary, Mary So Contrary" riff off "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary", a popular English nursery rhyme.
                                              

                                             
Monster Movie was the last Can album on which Malcolm Mooney performed all of the vocals until Rite Time, recorded in late 1986 and issued in 1989.

Personnel

                                                   

Irmin Schmidt – keyboards
Jaki Liebezeit – drums
Holger Czukay – bass
Michael Karoli – guitar
Malcolm Mooney – vocals, harmonica

TRACKS

                                                               

01. Father Cannot Yell    7:06
02. Mary, Mary So Contrary    6:21
03. Outside My Door    4:11
04. Yoo Doo Right    20:27

Total length:    38:05

MP3 @ 320 Size: 89 MB
Flac  Size: 222 MB

FUTURE DAYS    AUGUST 1973

                                               

Future Days is the fourth studio album by the German experimental rock group Can, released in 1973.

It was the last Can album to feature Japanese vocalist Damo Suzuki, and sees the band exploring a more atmospheric sound than their previous releases.
On Future Days, Can foregrounds the ambient elements they had explored on previous albums, dispensing largely with traditional rock song structures and instead "creating hazy, expansive soundscapes dominated by percolating rhythms and evocative layers of keys". PopMatters wrote that "It feels as if Future Days is driven by a coastal breeze, exuding a more pleasant, relaxed mood than anything the band had previously recorded."

From contemporary reviews, Ian MacDonald of NME praised the album, opining it was "an immaculate piece of work, the best German rock record so far, apart from Faust", and concluded that it was "sheer good music and is perfectly easy for anyone with a pair of ears attached to their heads to get into and thoroughly enjoy.

 

 

Personnel

                                            

Holger Czukay – bass, double bass
Michael Karoli – guitar, violin
Jaki Liebezeit – drums, percussion
Irmin Schmidt – keyboards, synthesizers
Damo Suzuki – vocals, percussion

TRACKS

                                            

01. Future Days    9:30
02. Spray    8:29
03. Moonshake    3:04
04. Bel Air    19:53

Total length:    40:56

MP3 @ 320 Size: 95 MB
Flac  Size: 268 MB

SOON OVER BABALUMA NOVEMBER 1974

                                                

Soon Over Babaluma is the fifth studio album by the rock music group Can. This is the band's first album following the departure of Damo Suzuki in 1973. The vocals are provided by guitarist Michael

Karoli and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt. It is also their last album that was created using a two-track tape recorder.
It takes the ambient style of Future Days and pushes it even further at times, as on "Quantum Physics", although there are also some upbeat tracks, such as "Chain Reaction" and "Dizzy Dizzy". American musician Dominique Leone reviewed Soon Over Babaluma for Pitchfork, writing that he "was constantly surprised at how clear everything sounded, as if the band had recorded all of this stuff in one fell swoop during an unbelievably inspired, marathon session. One of the great things about Can[, ... ,] was the attention to detail and realization that the effect of each tiny moment in the course of a song can

affect the momentum of the entire piece. No small miracles here: even if it's sad to think these albums represent Can's last great gasp, none of their moments have ever sounded better". In his review for Allmusic, American music journalist Ned Raggett stated that "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", giving the album a rating of four stars out of five.

TRACK LISTING AND PERSONNEL

                                             

01. Dizzy Dizzy - (Lyrics: Duncan Fallowell; music: Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt) - 5:40
Michael Karoli - vocals, violin, guitar
Irmin Schmidt - organ, electric piano, alpha 77
Jaki Liebezeit - percussion
Holger Czukay - bass
02. Come Sta, La Luna - (Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt) - 5:42
Michael Karoli - electric violin, guitar, backing vocals
Irmin Schmidt - vocals, piano, organ, alpha 77, electronic percussion
Jaki Liebezeit - percussion
Holger Czukay - bass
03. Splash - (Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt) - 7:45
Michael Karoli - electric violin, guitar
Irmin Schmidt - organ, electric piano, alpha 77
Jaki Liebezeit - percussion
Holger Czukay - bass
04. Chain Reaction - (Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt) - 11:09
Michael Karoli - vocals, guitar
Irmin Schmidt - organ, electric piano, alpha 77
Jaki Liebezeit - percussion
Holger Czukay - bass
05. Quantum Physics - (Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt) - 8:31
Michael Karoli - vocals, guitar
Irmin Schmidt - organ, electric piano, alpha 77
Jaki Liebezeit - percussion
Holger Czukay - bass

MP3 @ 320 Size: 90 MB
Flac  Size: 237 MB

Can on Urban Aspirines HERE