Soul Strut 100: # 86 - Can - Tago Mago
RAJ
tenacious local 7,782 Posts
I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.
# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
Wikipidea
Tago Mago is the third studio album by the German experimental rock band Can, and was originally released as a double LP in 1971 by United Artists. It was the band's second studio album to feature Kenji "Damo" Suzuki after their previous vocalist, Malcolm Mooney, quit the band in 1970 after having a nervous breakdown.
Tago Mago has been described as Can's most extreme record in terms of sound and structure.[1] The album has received much critical acclaim since its release and has been cited as an influence by various artists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tago_Mago
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# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
Wikipidea
Tago Mago is the third studio album by the German experimental rock band Can, and was originally released as a double LP in 1971 by United Artists. It was the band's second studio album to feature Kenji "Damo" Suzuki after their previous vocalist, Malcolm Mooney, quit the band in 1970 after having a nervous breakdown.
Tago Mago has been described as Can's most extreme record in terms of sound and structure.[1] The album has received much critical acclaim since its release and has been cited as an influence by various artists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tago_Mago
Related Threads
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Comments
Yes indeed! That track is bananas.
"Tago Mago" has a bit more avant noodling, but also has those killer primal jams.
This and "Landed" are the two holes in my 70s Can section.
I need a nice vinyl copy to put me out of my mp3 misery.
Added to the Soul Strut Top 100 spotify list:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1121775350/playlist/54CR4Ce88uFkr6shaMHxVX
This is why I like Soul Strut because I can learn about new music that I never knew was out there.
My mind is melted.
Also look up Amon Duul II, Kraftwerk, Neu, and Faust
There is so much amazing kraut rock out there.
Tago Mago Ist the shit!
NOW finally here's an album that I can fully get behind.. This album is a start to finish masterpiece. It was self released on a small run of 500 records on the Music factory label.
If this album was a painting it would hang in the Louvre. If it were a surrealistic film it would be right up there with the best Peter Greenaway, Ingmar Bergman, Fellini, Hitchcock, and Jodorowsky films.
It's not an accessible album by any means.. everybody is not gonna get this record. Your not going to hear this album bumping from anybodys ride (except mine). I personally don't have many friends that I can truly share this album with. However the people that can get behind this record with me.. are friends for life. You have to sort of be on that level to really, get it. You know?
Tago Mago is a secret club for real heads to tout. Some real Art school student top 20 band influences list type of shit.
Tago Mago was named after a large rock on an island in Ibiza that Jaki Liebezeit was going commit suicide from because life didn't make sense to him anymore.
The thing you have to realize about CAN is that they were not a bunch of german kids playing garage rock. They were all adults.. Jaki had a long career as a jazz drummer in Germany. before CAN Playing with the likes of Chet Baker and such.. A mysterious older man walked up to him one day and told him. Listen boy! You must play monotonous. Monotony is the key. This floated in his mind like a mantra as he developed his octupus armed steam train repetition based drumming style.
You also had a genius bass player/recording engineer a student of Stockhausen and John Cage.. He was heavy into the new technology and making film scores and inventing analog recording techniques. He was throwing away the books on what modern composition could be and started cutting up and editing these multi-hour long jams his band was working on. Holger was 31 when Tago Mago came out, he was teaching french in an all girls school and he also was playing with a guitar student of his..
Michael Karoli.. Who was 21.. and was heavy into psychedelics, Jimi Hendrix and Turkish music.. Like many of the young german bands of this time.. he was really experimental and wanted to get rid of the Dogma and negativity that came from the music associated with post-nazi Germany. He didn't know very much about the blues, and his guitar playing is very heavy on being rhythmic and unexpected... He was into the music from the congo, and japanese sort of ideas. One thing is for sure though Czukay must have been a damned good guitar teacher.
Everybody knows the story of Damo Suzuki a japanese tourist/avant-artist/samurai/street preacher/broke actor who they happened upon on a street corner one day. Definitely influenced from the decision post-Malcolm Mooney to find somebody cool to sing some shit in English. Which I'm sure they were all definitely influenced by alot of the heavier sounds coming from american music (Oddly enough their biggest American influences were The Velvet Underground, Miles Davis, Hendrix, James Brown). Damo Suzuki was a traveler ready for any situation.. He did a damn fine job.. with what little english he actually knew hanging out with this crazy bunch of sauerkrauts.
Irmin and Hildegard were in charge of the group of misfits.. Irmin was heavy into the film world keeping them paid and involved with movie soundtracks. He states at this period his influences were Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky. He was sponsored by Farfisa, and he was pioneering some early synth sounds.
All these ingredients doesn't sound like it would somehow cook into this album. I'm honestly still at an awe of how this record was made. Every track is strong except Aumgn & Peking O being the standout weird tracks.. that kind of meander as trippy movie soundtrack soundscapes. (Of course they more than made up for those 2 tracks with the utterly unfuckwithable Ege Bamyasi & Future Days albums.)
I'm heavily influenced by this record. It's forever burned into my mind, and I hope this album lives forever. This is some of the best shit I've heard in my life. I can't say nothing but good things about this album. More music should be like this album. This album is a true anomaly.. who knows when the universe will create something like this again? Dear god, I hope I'm still alive to hear it.
- Diego
I think Karoli is an underrated guitarist. In my mind garden he is somewhere in the topwhatever.
It's sad that he was the first to die even though he was the youngest.
i run into people consistently that hear Can for the first time and assume its a new, or at least newer band. when i tell them ege bamyasi and tago mago are from the early 70s, their minds are blown. unfortunately i only have an original copy of ege bamyasi and delay 1968, really need to step up my Can collection.
- spidey
Hey M****n,
you should defenty check his experimental reggae album from 1984 if you don't know it.
Good stuff:
This pressing opens with a cool envelope style sleeve, but I decided to trade my copy for a Spoon pressing with the better cover image (imo), was unaware that the UA was the og (!!). Intriguing and high-calibre album that gets a good (if slightly shocked reaction) from most people I've played it to. Great poast from Spidey, was unaware of a lot of that history.
A few years back there was rumours of some kind of re-issue of Can stuff that included unreleased material and out-takes from the Ege Bamyasi sessions. Did this (proposed 3xLP?) thing ever see the light of day?
But for all the talk of it being a difficult listen ("Aumgn" and "Peking O" definitely are) I get nothing but good responses when I play out the likes of "Halleluwah" (although I don't play all 18 minutes of it...)
It comes out on my birthday June 19th on Mute records!!
- spidey
"They've got the most amazing drummer I've ever heard! He just like.. he keeps the Beat, and he plays 2 at once and like.. he's just good!"
- John Lydon of PIL
NOICE.
Been on vacation for the past 10 days... New one coming tmw or Friday.
Great soundtrack for a great TV-Movie.
"Ege Bamyasi" is the only Can I own. Have to give Tago Mago a listen.