"A Quest for Prog" is a series of 50 Progressive Rock reviews to be written over a year. The band selection is taken from the book in the first post on this blog. And the albums I am reviewing is based on the highest user ratings for each band on Progarchives.com.
Can – Future Days (1973)
Produced by Can
Holger Czukay – Bass, double bass
Michael Karoli – Guitar, violin
Jaki Liebezeit – Drums, percussion
Irmin Schmidt – Keyboards, synthesizers
Damo Suzuki – Vocals, percussion
Track listing:
Side one:
01. Future Days (9:30)
02. Spray (8:29)
03. Moonshake (3:04)
Side two:
01. Bel Air (20:00)
Released in 1973 "Radio Days" was the fifth album by German band Can and the last to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki. Formed in 1968 after Irmin Schmidt spent some time in New York and in his own words was “Corrupted” by the Velvet Underground and the Factory scene. Can are credited as being one of the first Krautrock bands and focused on improved and spontaneous recordings.
I have friends who like this band a lot and for some reason I have never heard any of their music. Future Days is a very disjointed and sparse sounding record. On my first listen it seemed a very incomplete album, almost primitive. The recordings, from what I could tell, were for the most part improvisations that were build upon and manipulated in the studio.
The album begins with the title track “Future Days”. The track begins with ambient industrial sounds. The song proper sits on a bed of live drums and other percussion like steel drums and wood blocks. The instrumentation over top is very ambient and minimal with instruments making brief appearances and then disappearing. The vocals begin very quiet and slowly pick up volume as the song progresses. This song seems like a number of unrelated recordings being pieced together. The vocals especially have the speed altered and changed for different lines. This track is quite puzzling but at the same time quite captivating.
“Spray” follows on and is a more upbeat tune. This track has an even more chopped and manipulated sound. I think this is what The Flaming Lips Carpark experiments might have sounded like. At the start it almost sounded like a bad cassette copy of the album where it was popping and flipping between channels. The actual music in the track sounds very much like 60’s exotica with heavy percussion and some nice guitar lines.
The “Pop” song of the album finishes off the first side of the album. “Moonshake” is an almost conventional song. Clocking in at just over 3 minutes, with a linear song structure and melody this song reminds me of an upbeat Velvet Underground. This song seems a little like a throw away to me.
The second side of the album is dedicated to the 20min “Bel Air”. This track is quite Jazzy and at point almost feels like a waltz. The vocals are the strongest on this song with song really sweet melodies along the way. The song has a number of different sections as with most Progressive songs over 20 minutes in length. There are some interesting freak out sections and really jazzy parts as well. It’s quite an interesting piece albeit quite long.
This is an interest album but I can’t get past the fact that it sounds incomplete to me. I enjoy the deconstructed, or is that reconstructed, idea behind the music but sonically it it doesn’t hit the mark for me. Maybe if I give it some time it might connect with me more?
5/10
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