Tago Mago

CAN (formed in Germany in the late 60's) was a fierce combination of rock (not r 'n' r), jazz, electronics, and with Damo Suzuki's vocals (used at times like another instrument), was one of the better bands playing something akin to Prog-Rock during the hey-day of that style. And when the band added their deep, aggressive, almost funk-like rhythms into the music, they produced an oftentimes visceral sound that was very compelling. They have been compared to the VELVET UNDERGROUND, but that's a bit of a misnomer. On extended tracks both groups had a (sometimes) similar sound. But when CAN added that snaky, dark, organic rhythmic feel, they were in a space of their own making. CAN were ultimately more aggressive in their playing than the V.U. They approach music differently-they begin playing and let the music take control-until they stop. Their music isn't as simplistic as the above sentence might lead you to believe-rather it's full of smaller, subtle (varied and various) influences that are woven into, and combined into a fierce overall approach-and it works.CAN was never all that well known, which is a shame. The band released several albums of well written, arranged, and exciting music-music that still has much of it's power intact today. But their music wasn't all that easy to understand, they were sometimes labeled as an avant-garde group, and that didn't equate into record sales. Even on the underground scene of the period, the band was not that well known or appreciated. They were perceived as "far out"-and in a sense, they were-but in a good, individualistic way. Besides "Tago Mago", they released other fine albums like "Ege Bamyasi", and "Future Days" among others. One of the tracks on the extra disc in this edition, "Spoon", was originally released on "Ege Bamyasi"-although the studio version was a bit over three minutes long. Here, the band stretches the composition out to approximately thirty minutes, where they really explore the arrangement to good effect.The band (for those who don't know) consisted of Holger Czukay on earth rumbling bass. Jackie Liebezeit-an extraordinary drummer capable of both pushing the band along in a groove, and playing with great finesse. Irmin Schmidt-a keyboard player who could play most any style, and used his talents to color the band's sound, and who could also play with great restraint when called for-with great beauty. Michael Karoli-a guitarist who could up the firepower when called for and who could also play with great restraint. And when you add Suzuki's sometimes "doomy" vocal style into the mix, you have a group of immense talent and power.And that brings us to "Tago Mago", one of the better (some say best) albums CAN ever released. THERE'S AN IMPORT EDITION WHICH IS IDENTICAL TO THIS RELEASE-BUT COSTS APPROXIMATELY TWICE AS MUCH-SO BEWARE. The sound is very good, having been remastered from the original stereo master tapes-under the watchfulness of both Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay, in Germany. This re-issue has the original packaging not seen since the original release-a nice touch-and it befits the band. The 14 page booklet is a good combination of essay and photographs. Included is a two page piece from the magazine Melody Maker from 1972. This concise article was used as the liner notes for the album's original release the same year. There's also an appreciation from Bobby Gillespie (PRIMAL SCREAM) on how the band influenced him. There are another two pieces on CAN and their music from Duncan Stubbs and Duncan Fallowell, which shed more light on the band. The discs slip inside separate sleeves that slip inside a wallet style holder. This, plus the booklet, fit inside a fold-apart holder. The colorful graphics that cover all the above really bring back the feel of that period of music, and a time when record labels/art directors were allowed to do just about anything. Over time this style of outside holder will tear or become damaged with use-but it sure looks cool! The shorter tracks (Disc 1 is approximately 73 minutes long) have an interest all their own (hear "Paperhouse", "Mushroom", or "Oh Yeah"-which begins with, literally, an explosion), but it's when the band allows themselves room to fully explore the music, that the group is heard at their best. Compositions like "Halleluhwah" (likened to Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" jam era of tape editing tune construction, here also in a shorter 9 minute live version), "Peking O", and "Aumgn" are fine examples of the band at their best. The playing is intelligent yet exciting, taught and never flabby, and gives the band the chance to do what they do best-incorporate their various (and varied) influences into the music. And having an additional disc of live tracks (approximately 48 minutes worth) only emphasizes the band's sound. This is sometimes dense, rhythmically intense music that has a real edge to it-in part due to Suzuki's speaking/sung vocals and the band's use of droning sound (that's where the avant-garde label comes in), that in combination produces some exhilarating music that sets this band apart from other groups plying the Prog-Rock landscape. Listen to the live tracks ("Spoon", "Halleluwah") for prime examples of their rhythmically dense, subtly droning intense style of playing.This is collective, in-your-face, doom-laden, funky, nowhere-to-hide, space, trance music that comes from some other place-sounding like some kind of organic machine. It's music played by five people-but they seem to coalesce into some sort of powerful, singular group mind. This is music that needs to be heard all the way through at one sitting. To not do so, is to sharply lessen the impact and the effect it has on the whole listening experience. The scope of this music is broad and deep-it grabs a hold of both your mind and body until you find yourself a part of the collective experience that is "Tago Mago"/CAN.It's still a mystery why CAN was never more well known and accepted during the late 60's/early 70's. This was a period when musical boundaries were in constant flux and change. While other bands grabbed all the attention, CAN continued to play and release several fine albums-all to little or no fanfare. Perhaps it's because they hailed from Germany-while most (if not all) the well known groups were anchored in Britain, and to some extent America. Yes, their music has to be heard and not just listened to-you have to pay attention, but the rewards are very satisfying. The vocals weren't for everyone. And the "avant-garde" tag didn't help either. But no matter-CAN still rank as one of the finest groups of their era. And the rewards found in their music makes all the effort worthwhile. Open your ears, and you too might find some very fine music from a perennially unknown, yet cutting edge band. Hopefully the band's other fine albums will be re-issued in a format like "Tago Mago". Maybe they'll get the rewards they deserve after all.

Addendum to my original review.... After living with this album for a year, I have to say it really grows on you. CAN is clearly different from any of the popular groups of the time - Merging Funk / Rock / Psychedelic to arrive at something altogether original. Still, probably not for the casual music enthusiast; but if you are looking for something truly different, this is well with the journey. [Original review follows} I read several reviews of CAN, 'Tago Mago' rating it as one of the best albums of 1971; one review rated this as the best album ever... Based on that, I ordered 'Tago Mago' & 'Ege Bamyasi' and.... I've heard better. If you are looking for something different from the early 70's this may be an option for you. There is a fusion of Psychedelic / Rock / Jazz / Improv / some manic drumming / some Jim Morrison [like] vocal ramblings; that are at times interesting and at time tedious. These albums have an experimental feel similar to Captain Beefheart &/or Frank Zappa & the Mothers; so its not your typical 70's pop / rock fair. For me, I enjoy these albums more when mixed in a large playlist to dilute some of the eccentricities of this music.

Simply put, this is one of the greatest records I have ever heard. I am very happy to finally have it on vinyl after years of listening to it through minimal-quality mp3s. I searched for a while for this particular record, to no avail. Until recently. The price was fair and the record plays very well. I love this album and am very pleased with the purchase.As far as the big question for the novice: should I buy this? If you have never heard this album, but you like Steve Reich or Stockhausen or perhaps Kraftwerk or John Cage or early-seventies Pink Floyd or Public Image, Ltd. or Eno or Television or the Velvet Underground circa White Light/ White Heat or you're looking into bucket list kind of albums, then it comes highly recommended. Not simply by me, but, by the looks of it, the overwhelming majority of this album's reviewers.Naturally, the sort of "if you like this, then..." comparisons to Can are wholly useless in describing the quality or cadence of the music. It effectively exists on its own plain. However, the artists I mentioned above are people or groups that, perhaps, were on a similar wave length to Can, and, also, fans of those artists will likely also be, or become at some point, Can fans. Also, this is a good album to get really stoned to.

Can, the German experimental band that started in the late '60's and still garner a small but enthusiastic audience thanks to reissues and continued press coverage, stretched the limits of music and sound as far as it could go. Some may say it broke the limits, but that's a matter of taste and adventure. "Tago Mago" is the centerpiece of Can's career, a double CD that still boggles the mind today as it did over thirty years ago. Given the comparatively primitive state of recording technology that existed at the time, the sounds Can created were nothing short of astonishing. It is best to approach this disc as a soundscape as opposed to "traditional" music, because as we find by the second half of the CD, convention leaves the room. "Halleluwah" is an 18 minute percussive tour de force, with fluttering spacey keyboards punctuating the mix. It's more of a weird jam session, but does not grow dull, which is a feat considering its length. The real doozy is "Augmn", which is simply indescribable. Low, moaning voices that would scare the hell out of Alfred Hitchcock and a mad organ that sounds like a fairground run by Satan himself make this spooky, ethereal and just plain weird. Ditto "Peking O", with mainly demented shouts the main feature. Rock was about breaking the rules and going into worlds music wasn't supposed to go. Can is the perfect portal to what acid/experimental music might sound like on the other side of the worm hole. Are you adventurous enough to take this ride?

I always thought my CD copy of this amazing album was about as good as it would ever get, bearing in mind the relatively lo-fi nature of the original recordings.This album was recorded using two stereo mastering tape machines. The band would record one “layer” live to the first machine, and then play along with that to the second machine. In 1971 this was actually quite a tried and tested means of working, and early pioneers such as Les Paul and pop sensations like Buddy Holly had used the technique. By 1967 the Beatles were using two four track machines to do a similar thing, but Can obviously lacked their resources.The technique does create problems, both in mixing and in final mastering. Firstly, you must commit your live mix to the first tape, and it cannot then be altered once the additional layer is added, unless you start from scratch. Furthermore, each time you bounce from one tape to another you add a new layer of tape hiss. That’s fine as long as you limit the number of bounces.Then you have to think about the dynamics of the finished product. There’s no way to tweak that drum mix once it’s down in the layers somewhere, so if it doesn’t work you’re kinda stuck.One way of getting around these limitations is to make good use of editing, where you can cut between bounces. So, you might go from layer 1 with a nice neat instrumentation all worked out, to the second or third or fourth layer where there are many more instruments in play, but lots more tape hiss, and perhaps a few mix problems. This probably explains why the recording sessions were prolonged and intensive. There had to be lots of experimentation to get it right.Holger Czukay was a master of the art of the edit, and this record is littered with them, as we flutter back and forth between takes and between entirely different events. He no doubt took his inspiration from the likes of Miles Davis, Frank Zappa and his direct mentor Karlheinz Stockhausen, but what Holger did with the technique was unparalleled in the analogue era.Mind you, he had the best source material to work with!So, given the limitations of the recording studio Czukay was working in, imagine my surprise to hear a much cleaner version of Tago Mago, thanks in large part to the amazing work of Andreas Torkler at Sonopress. The very first thing I noticed upon first hearing was how the opening of Paperhouse (and Augmn, they are the same) was almost noise free. The first sound is Michael Karoli rubbing (perhaps cleaning?) his guitar strings, making that squeaky sound every guitarist is so familiar with.On the original Spoon CD from 1989 the hiss is very evident, even when the drums kick in, but not so on this remaster. Yes, there is still a little tape hiss in the quiet passages - I don’t think the technology exists just yet to remove all the noise without affecting the upper frequencies - but whatever noise cancelling regime Sonopress uses is pretty effective.Another thing to bear in mind is that the original CD was likely prepared from a safety copy rather than the original master tape. That would not normally add a huge amount of hiss unless it was badly done, and there is some sonic evidence that this might have been the case here.Again in the Adobe Audition spectral analyser, I can see that throughout the original CD there is a constant 15.3 kHz tone in the left channel. It crosses edits and is present on every track at exactly the same level. This kind of tone is associated with computer monitors or TV sets, but might arise from any electromagnetic source. The fact that it is so constant makes me think it probably derived from a mastering or tape copying session.There is no sign that the tone was forcibly removed by filtering, since the spectral display looks pristine on the new CD.So, perhaps the original master tape simply gave a much better, cleaner, less hissy source to master from than whatever was used originally. But I do know that some kind of intelligent filtering was used. There’s a moment when a dog barks on Augmn. At that point on the original CD there is a strong 21.9 kHz tone that wiggles a bit before descending into the audible range. The upper portions of the tone are entirely missing from the remaster (and no great loss, it has to be said). It’s absence does provide evidence that filtering of the original master has taken place.So, at least we now know why the dog was barking. Or was this Holger playing tricks on us?It’s also interesting to note that there is slightly more hiss on the right hand channel, both on the original CD and the remaster.Of course, every new remaster these days has to play its part in the loudness war, and Tago Mago is no exception. The difference was immediately apparent. My best guess is that they have added up to 9dB, but the story is a little more complex than that.Close examination of the amplitude of the waveforms shows that some peaks have actually been reduced. I haven’t got enough information to guess what protocols they were using, but I imagine we are looking at sophisticated multi channel compression and dynamics management.What all of this adds up to is the the best sounding version of Tago Mago yet produced, regardless of what your rose tinted memories of the various vinyl editions might be. Don’t worry about the additional loudness. None of the important dynamics have suffered. Indeed, from my detailed listening and analysis I’d say they have been enhanced. The drums sound absolutely incredible. The clean copy reveals so much more about what’s going on. All of the original magic is still there, but it isn’t obscured by hiss any more.Definitely a classic album, but one that now sounds better than ever.

OK - here I go again, buying something I originally owned on vinyl.The first 2 sides (Paperhouse, Mushroom, Oh Yeah & Halleluwah) feature free-form lyrics and guitar work, held together by a tight rhythm section that really knows what it's doing. These four are amongst some of my favourite tracks of all time.The rest of the album is much looser in style, varying from musique-concrete to more free-form rock. Just a minor quibble, but the vinyl album's cover is better!I would say that, if you only ever buy one example of Krautrock, make this album that one, as it's CAN's finest.

"This has to be one of Kraut classics. It will stand the test of time this one. Probably the most prolifick influence for, 'The Happy Mondays,'the hypnotic bests will have you trancing."

Classic improvisation based krautrock from the masters of the genre. If you haven't heard this album before you will find yourself immersed in a sonic landscape that could be produced by noone else. You may also be surprised that you may have heard some of this before. Well worth the money.

A different style to the previous album but still really enjoyable. Some classic tracks, now remastered.