In May of 1970 the members of the Cologne rock outfit CAN recruited Kobe, Japan born street performer Damo Suzuki to replace their first singer Malcolm Mooney, who had departed from their ranks following a nervous breakdown under the advice of his psychiatrist. With Damo in the mix, the collective would usher in the 70s with their 1971 double album masterpiece Tago Mago, 73-minutes that bridged the gap between Pink Floyd at their freakiest and Miles Davis at his funkiest. Seven tracks spread across four sides of an LP, its a record that has inspired just about every cool group you listen to, from Public Image Ltd to Primal Scream to Sonic Youth to Animal Collective to the Jesus and Mary Chain to The Flaming Lips to Talk Talk to Radiohead to The Fall and then some while spearheading the band’s “classic years” that would also include 1972’s equally indispensable Ege Bamyasi and 1973’s Future Days. In every breadth of its essence, Tago is the epitome of what any group touting itself as a “jamband” should strive to achieve in their endless quest for the perfect groove, as CAN exhibits a sense of fearlessness in its uninhibited method of compositional fluidity on epic brain melters as “Halleluhwah” and “Aumgn” that Julian Cope proclaimed in his essential Krautrocksampler tome that it “sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after.”
In celebration of its 40th anniversary, Mute Records, the longtime distributor of CAN’s own Spoon imprint, has released a beautifully crafted deluxe edition of Tago Mago that contains a bonus CD that culls nearly 50 minutes of material from the group’s 1972 tour in support of the album as well as extensive liner notes that include a reprint of an original article written by London journalist Duncan Fallowell in a ’72 issue of Melody Maker as well as a wild 2004 testimonial from Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie on the night he and Liam Gallagher “jammed their arses off” with guitarist Michael Karoli and drummer Jaki Leibezeit until 5 in the morning back in the summer of 1997 three weeks after Gillespie and Mani from The Stone Roses sat down for dinner with the entire core lineup of CAN, rounded out by bassist Holger Czukay and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt.
Tago Mago is a landmark recording in the world of avant-psychedelia, a spectacular display of pure unconcentrated freedom in the rock ‘n’ roll paradigm that EVERYONE who reads this site on a regular basis needs to own.
