Pitchfork: Can to Reissue First Four Albums

One of the most groundbreaking, influential, and photogenic groups of the 1970s, prog-psych/krautrock collective Can, are finally gearing up to re-release their first four albums via Spoon/Mute on November 2nd. Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Tago Mago, and Ege Bamyasi are the first Can records to receive that special treatment, but Spoon promises that the rest of their catalog will follow in 2005 and 2006. The remasters were sourced from the original master tapes, with bassist Holger Czukay and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt (the founders of the band) overseeing the entire process. And hey, if you've just been pretending to have heard Can all these years, perhaps this will be just the incentive you needed to stop bullshitting your way through life.

Czukay and Schmidt, both ex-students of Stockhausen, formed Can in 1968 with guitarist Michael Karoli, drummer Jaki Liebezeit, and American singer Malcolm Mooney, and recorded their debut album, Monster Movie, in a castle in Cologne. The record is much more bracing and straightforward than Can's later work-- with Mooney yowling nonsense (for the most part) over acid-tweaked garage-rock-- although it showcases the band's Teo Macero-esque approach to recording: jam for hours and edit the highlights into songs and albums.

1970 signaled the introduction of Japanese vocalist Kenji "Damo" Suzuki, who shared album space with Mooney on Soundtracks, a collection of film music that indicated a maturation in the group's sound. The album only hinted at the group's future potential though, and it wasn't until Suzuki completely took over the vocal duties for the band that they achieved their masterpieces, 1971's double LP Tago Mago and 1972's Ege Bamyasi, records with an influence so far-reaching as to cement Can as one of the most important bands of the 1970s. Tracklists:

Monster Movie:
01 Father Cannot Yell
02 Mary, Mary So Contrary
03 Outside My Door
04 You Doo Right

Soundtracks:
01 Deadlock
02 Tango Whiskyman
03 Deadlock
04 Don't Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone
05 Soul Desert
06 Mother Sky
07 She Brings the Rain

Tago Mago:
01 Paperhouse
02 Mushroom
03 Oh Yeah
04 Halleluhwah
05 Aumgn
06 Peking O
07 Bring Me Coffee or Tea

Ege Bamyasi:
01 Pinch
02 Sing Swan Song
03 One More Night
04 Vitamin C
05 Soup
06 I'm So Green
07 Spoon

.: Pitchfork Review: Can: DVD
.: Spoon Records: http://www.spoonrecords.com