LIVE IN BRIGHTON 1975

Back in the Seventies I must confess I was not a fan of Can and am not sure I had even heard the name, as none of my mates were into experimental Krautrock, and they continued to pass me by until about 20 years ago when I first dipped my toes in the water to see what they were all about. Needless to say, it was a revelation, but I soon realised there was a difference between Can in the studio and Can in concert, as the latter was something which took improvisation and experimentation to new levels. This is the second in a series of releases by Mute, the other two featuring Stuttgart in 1975 and Cuxhaven in 1976, and has the band back as the original quartet of Holger Czukay (bass), Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar), and Jaki Liebezeit (drums).

I am sure all these tracks are based on others which appeared on albums, even if they are only influenced by them, and here the seven songs (91 minutes in length) are literally just numbered 1-9 (in German). I read one review which said to miss out the early songs altogether and go straight to 'Vier' as that is where the magic starts, and while that may be true I found the build to that was wonderful. Here was a band who were improvising on the spot, looking to each other for direction and inspiration, then travelling in that direction and bringing the audience with them. By this time they had been playing together for seven years, and it had been a couple of years and an album since the departure of Damo Suzuki, so they were again used to working as a quartet, and through the set they gradually warm up and get into the groove, finding the special place where everyone turns into trans galactic space goats where all that exists is the music and everything else just pales into no existence.

This is classic Can, captured in wonderful sound quality and one would never imagine this recording is now nearly fifty years old as it could have been from last week, except people just don't perform music like this anymore, or do they? Classic progheads, lovers of experimental music and Can aficionados need to dig this out.

I consider myself a pretty big fan of CAN with those first five studio albums from 1968 to 1972 being my favourite period of their music. I'm counting "Delay '68" which is archival as the first. So I was really on the fence about picking this one up considering it's live material from 1975. This was actually a learning experience because CAN in the studio I found out are very different from CAN playing live. So what we have here are two discs of improvs that were never played previously or afterwards. While the sound quality isn't bad it is muddy even affecting me hearing certain instruments at times. It's a far cry from the sound quality of live music today but that is expected. Recorded by a fan it is much better than you might expect but when I rate as a fan the sound quality is important to that rating.

In the liner notes Irmin Schmidt relates how Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" performance at Woodstock changed his attitude to making music. "It was like an orchestral painting, only solo on one guitar, that really stirred me at the time and had a big influence. It's action painting. It's very expressive, emotional and full of a certain kind of expression. That's what I was after, and what fascinated me in Jimi Hendrix, because what he does there, in one fell stroke, is create a new instrument. That's what you as a composer try to aspire to." And speaking of the liner notes one of my favourite things about this release are the black and white pictures of the band members, just so well done.

I had a hard time with the first disc as we get four tracks over 47 plus minutes. There's quite a bit of sparse music on this disc where it's quiet and usually that's at the beginning of the improv. Guitar, organ and drums are mostly standing out once they get going. I do like how experimental the final track is on disc one. Disc two is three tracks over 43 plus minutes and in my opinion a more enjoyable listen as we get some fire here and there. They continue to start slow with sparse sounds but yes this is where we get some passion. This just isn't a 4 star recording for me. "The Lost Tapes" blows this out of the water on a number of levels but I know the fanboys will be eating this one up.