Damo Suzuki has passed away. A giant in the field of ... well, modern music, but hardly known to most, Suzuki was the vocalist (or, more precisely, contributed vocals, because Can didn't really have a 'vocalist') of the krautrock band, Can, during what I consider the absolute zenith of Can, the early 1970s. His articulations grace three 'proper' Can albums, Tago Mago (1971), Eye Bamyasi (1972), and Future Days (1973) plus he's also on a soundtrack album, Soundtracks (1970) which collects some loose ends.
I came to Can rather late, sometime in the early '90s when I picked up a compilation album Tyranny of the Beat: Original Soundtracks from the Grey Area (1991) issued by Mute records that collects experimental progenitor tracks from the early days of electronic music, including works by Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubaten, Wire, Swell Maps, Loop, Fad Gadget, etc.
One of the tracks ("Oh Yeah") was by Can and it completely blew my mind. The song appears to start with the sound of a distant explosion, perhaps a bomb set off in a few miles away, and then goes into a hypnotizing metronomic percussive sound. When I first heard it, I just assumed it was some kind of electronic drum machine sequencer, but as you enter the second minute of it, as the sound becomes louder and more legible, your brain adjusts and you realize, no, it's actually a real drum set played by a real human being (Jaki Liebezeit, one of the greatest rock drummers, bar none). That adjustment in my brain really threw me for a loop. But the real reward is Damo's nonsensical yelps and outbursts, wordless, or maybe not, punctuating the song, giving it an emotional feel, sometimes mysterious, sometimes playful and sometimes both.
Later, I picked up Tago Mago (1971), the album on which "Oh Yeah" was taken from, and like probably many other young people listening to Can for the first time, it was a revelation. The minimalist machine-like discipline in their beat-making was as mesmerizing as it was unlike anything I'd heard before. I can see why, for some, Can could be an endurance test, but what I found, especially in Damo's vocals was, again, a playfulness and whimsy which seemed to undercut all the serious we-are-here-to-transport-you ethic that the other musicians in the band brought to bear.
It may be heresy to say so, but the most likely contemporary of Damo's was probably Yoko Ono, another worlds-breaking Japanese artist who, also during this very period. was experimenting with her vocals on some incredibly trancelike albums alluding to the cosmos, including Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (1970), Fly (1971), and Approximately Infinite Universe (1973). One wonders if their worlds ever collided.
Can and Can-adjacent people have a long discography, and it can be bewildering to know where to enter, but those three albums are perfect entry points. Or you could do worse with The Singles (2017) which collects all the high points from 1969 to 1979, even though the band were not known for their chart action.
I would be remiss not to mention one of my favorite Can-infuenced tracks, by Flaming Lips from their brilliant album In a Priest-Driven Ambulance (1990) which includes a song "Take Meta Mars" which was their attempt to copy the Tago Mago track "Mushroom." What they came up with was completely different and rather brilliant:
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