VOTD 3/30/2023

 Can: Tago Mago (United Artists)

Purchased used long enough ago that I don't remember where

I noticed mention of this album recently on a social media post, in response to discussion about Bitches Brew. There were back-and-forths about further album suggestions, and also about "accessibility."

Sigh. There's a loaded word. What is accessible? Inaccessible? Who determines these things? Is it possible that I don't generally accept the idea, and yet also understand it and can't deny the idea of "accessibility" to be true? At least, somewhat?

Is it also possible I'm just indecisive?

I looked up Can's discography while putting on this album. I didn't know how relatively early this record was. 1971, their third album release (the second was a compilation of soundtrack work), their first with vocalist Damo Suzuki. 

Their discography, what I've heard of it, can be spotty. I haven't listened to nearly all of it, but some of it doesn't appeal to me much. On Flowmotion from 1976, I found some individual tracks very good, others not so much. 

I don't know how anything I haven't heard could be better than Ege Bamyasi, the album that followed this one. It's a solid classic. I have my constantly-shifting list of favorite albums of all time; Ege Bamyasi doesn't make that top ten, but lingers somewhere in the second tier. 

Here's another word I dislike, but it's appropriate in this case. It's clear that the music arises out of jamming. They get together, start to work up a groove, and the piece is worked out. Even as they're performing, committing to tape, it sounds as if decisions are being made. 

And then there's Damo. I'm never entirely sure if he's improvising his lyrics each time. What is clear is that his vocal lines arise from jamming no less than anyone else in the band. It's magical; he isn't an especially strong vocalist, yet Can was great with him, never better. Maybe he seemed to complete a world-view of the music compatible with the jamming nature of it.

There's little question Can is driven by its rhythm section, unusually funky for a German band in 1971. They're patient; the side-long "Halleluwah" grooves on a bass riff for most of its length, and even fades out before the end of the side. Go longer please! There were some advantages to digital recording and CD length.

So far I've mentioned accessibility and jamming for overused/misunderstood words, why not go for a hat trick? This album finds them more experimental than their subsequent album. (I'll write another time about what I think the words experimental and avant-garde really mean when used by critics and journalists.) "Mushroom" has backwards-playback vocals. "Aumgn" is steeped in delay, and sounds like it's mostly improvised. It's interesting to include it on this album, but I admit I prefer Can when it's more grooving.

I can't escape a thought while listening to this: Tago Mago was a major label release. Seriously. Can was released on the same label as The Animals, George Jones, Patty Duke, ELO, Crystal Gayle, even some Beatles releases. I appreciate how much more easily and inexpensively artists can record their music now, but in some ways things are more backwards now. The money is no longer in album sales, and that's not going to change. Singles drove album sales, album sales and touring was where the money was made. No so any more. 

I had a conversation with a friend c.1983-84. The gist of it was, didn't the 1970s suck? Isn't the 1980s going to be better? There was indeed a wonderful boom in independently released music at the time. On reflection, the 1970s look so much more interesting than we thought, and the 1980s weren't so great. Now I'm getting old and I can't relate to almost anything current. Maybe there's somebody as interesting out there as Tago Mago-era Can, but I doubt it. And even if there is, I don't have the energy to seek them out.