After original lead singer Malcolm Mooney’s abrupt departure from Can -- and from Germany -- in late 1969, the band continued without a frontman for about six months. Then in May 1970 Holger Czukay met Japanese singer Damo Suzuki performing outside a Munich cafe and invited him to perform with the group at a show that evening.

Krautrock: Can, Tago Mago (1971) After original lead singer Malcolm Mooney’s abrupt departure from Can -- and from Germany -- in late 1969, the band continued without a frontman for about six months. Even next to those bands Can were revolutionary, and Tago Mago instantly became a name to drop in artier circles. The record could be heard blasting out of the hipper import stores – Harlequin and One Stop in Soho, and the brand new Virgin shop on Oxford Street.

Tago Mago, Can's Third Studio Album Originally Recorded in 1971 Is the First Album with Damo Suzuki on Vocals, and Features the Can Line Up of Holger Czukay on Bass, Michael Karoli on Guitars, Jaki Liebezeit on Drums and Irmin Schmidt on Keyboards. Can- Tago Mago (1971) MP3 & FLAC 'Well, I saw mushroom head, I was born and I was dead.' Named after a private island off the coast of Ibiza associated with Aleister Crowley, Can's Tago Mago is generally considered one of the pinnacles of the Kraut-Rock genre.

Soon enough they had a singer, and after recording a few songs with Suzuki that appeared on Soundtracks, they spent the latter part of the year recording in a castle near Cologne, ultimately emerging in early 1971 with their masterpiece of dark psychedelia, the double-LP Tago Mago.

Ege is the more completely formed and consistent album but Tago Mago just wins out on the strength of the first two sides and in particular Hallelujah, Can's greatest ever work. When we made Tago Mago we knew it could be an event that happens once in a century. I was a can head a long time ago and have always loved tago mago. This can be corrected in audacity, a free download for mixing etc. If your not sure how to correct there are many work shops on you tube. Reply Delete. The musical community of reddit. Use the following search parameters to narrow your results: subreddit:subreddit find submissions in 'subreddit'.

“The music sounds only like itself,” says Julian Cope in Krautrocksampler. “It’s pointless to describe the music, but it’s huge free-rock, as though each member of Can has a field to play in.”

The seven tracks take up the 70-plus minutes, a couple of which occupy entire sides. Unlike what appears on Soundtracks (save “Mother Sky”), here Suzuki’s contributions often function like the addition of another instrument to a fusion-y ensemble, his low mumbles and energetic shouts ably augmenting an increasingly exploratory sound.

“Paperhouse” begins the record in somewhat plodding fashion, with Michael Karoli’s charming jingle-jangle strumming quickly encouraging the listener to nod along. A percusion-and-bass driven middle section suddenly accelerates things considerably before reprising the opening that in turn chorus-pedals the Can machine to the finish.

The apocalyptic and moody “Mushroom” follows (via a clever segue), one my favorite “classic” Can tracks and one that has been covered many times over, most notably by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Suzuki’s vocal conveys tangible dread, alternating between frightened whispers and urgent cries over an eerie soundbed culminating with an explosion. From the smoke and ashes fades up the next track, “Oh Yeah,” a repetitive, hypnotic exercise with backwards vocals and a tribal rhythm that will signal to Radiohead fans an important influence.

Side 2 is covered by “Halleluwah,” powered throughout by a melodious, funky groove with Jaki Liebezeit’s stuttering drum providing a determined backbeat crossing Moe Tucker with Jack DeJohnette. Suzuki’s improvised lyrics include references to the titles of other Tago Mago songs, and the sheer variety of sounds (many of which are likewise unscripted) emanating from the guitars, bass, keyboards, and occasional effects and edits together elevate the track to a kind of comprehensive encyclopedia of Can.

Can Tago Mago Vinyl

“Augmn” takes up Side 3, the title of which alludes to the meditative “om” and/or evokes the idea of a magic spell. The first two-thirds are a formless, electroacoustic imbroglio of various instruments over which keyboardist Irmin Schmidt moans through heavy reverb and echo. Then the last six minutes feature manic percussive work by Liebezeit careening headlong toward some secret inner space.

I was tempted to call “Augmn” the most experimental track of a double record full of experiments, although the 11-minute “Peking O” that begins the final side aggressively takes that title as a multi-part pastiche of noises and effects approaching “Revolution 9”-level weirdness. Finally the short “Bring Me Coffee or Tea” serves as a mostly calming coda, though again builds to a rousing finish with cymbals crashing like so many waves upon the shore.

Named after Illa de Tagomago, a private island off the coast of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, Tago Mago simliarly stands apart as a strange, small marvel on its own amid the early ’70s musical sea.

In his seminal work on Kosmische, Krautrocksampler, Julian Cope writes that Can's Tago Mago 'sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after'. 40 years on from the album's initial release, it's an observation that still holds true. There have been many bands who have attempted to recreate the heady, woozy, dark whirl of rhythms invoked on Tago Mago – from Public Image Limited to The Horrors – yet none of them have ever managed to truly capture the combination of the sinister and the sublime that have made it such a modern classic.

I discovered Tago Mago in 2002 at a friend's house party, when I heard the strains of 'Mushroom' emanating in waves through the miasma of marijuana smoke and stale beer fumes. I was 19, just about to enter my second year of University, and had a spent a year in a tiny room in Camden wearing a duffle coat and listening to weedy, poorly-recorded C86 records on an old Dansette I'd purchased with my student loan. To say that it came as a bit of a revelation to my cloth ears would be an understatement.

There is this brilliant, creeping sense of unease that permeates 'Mushroom', from Damo Suzuki's overwraught vocals to Jaki Liebezeit's unrelenting, driving beat (a drumbeat which, over the years, I have played to many people – usually while drunk – demanding that they listen to it, just listen to it). The next day, I went into a record shop, bought the album on vinyl and played it over and over again, drinking in each of the rhythms and cursing the fact that my larger than average chest size meant that I'd never be able to become a drummer. To drum like Jaki would have meant investing in a bra that was more a minor feat of engineering that a piece of underwear.

It's not just the music that makes Tago Mago so exciting as much as who Can were when they recorded it; a bunch of experimental West German hippies who delighted in the strange. The album was recorded in Schloss Nörvenich, a castle near Cologne owned by an eccentric art collector. Can spent a year living and recording there, and would spend their days playing long, disorganised jams (more streams of musical consciousness than actual songs) that their bassist, Holger Czukay, would then splice into songs.

It's this recording process that has provided Tago Mago with its signature sound - long, uninterrupted series of rhythms, all punctuated with tape-loops, analogue synths, and primitive drum machines, providing it with an intensely stoned, woozy feel. Even the more 'difficult' tracks on Tago Mago, such as the echoed drone of 'Aumgm' (which, to modern ears, sounds like a precursor to some of the material later recorded by bands like Sunn 0))) and Boris) and the Hari Krishna-esque 'Peking O' show a band who thrilled in experimentation and playing with the limits of noise and technology.

Can Tago Mago Lyrics

Tago Mago shows Can at the height of their powers. Whilst their sound became more polished and poppy as they progressed through the 1970s (even earning them a minor UK chart hit with 1976's 'I Want More'), it still remains arguably their finest work. Over the years, it has become an album I've carted around with me everywhere I go – and have been forced to replace numerous times after lending it to ex-partners and leaving copies of it at house parties. I've yet to find another album that makes me wish I could turn back time and live in its world – in this case jamming with four German blokes for long days in a castle. And I've yet to find another album which contains drum patterns that make my bones shiver in delight. When it comes to Kosmische classics, this is an essential. If you don't have this in your record collection, you're doing yourself a massive disservice.