Can - Ogam Ogat

Can is a recent discovery of mine, music wise. Well, discovery. Of course I'd heard of and read about this band for years, but I never got around to really listening to their records. Strange, because I've listened to two Holger Czukay records since I was little (my father played them). Those records were 1984's Der Osten Ist Rot, and 1979's Movies. From this album comes the song Cool In The Pool:

Czukay was the bass player, recording engineer and sound manipulator in the band Can. Influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen, like a lot of the originators from the so called Kraurock Scene, Czukay formed Can in 1968.

The most famous, and in my opinion best, records by Can are Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago, the latter being a double disc vinyl, edited down from hours and hours of jamming. Czukay recorded a lot (some say all) of these jams, and used them to create, through the use of tape editing, the tunes on Tago Mago.


Especially the song Halleluwah earned a lot of fame. With it's 18 minutes and 32 seconds it might seem overlong or pretentieus in some other way, but this song is exciting thoughout and never bores me. With a lot of thanks to Jaki Liebezeit, Can's drummer, who excels in this song. In 2011 Tago Mago was re-released by Can's label Spoon Records, and in 2009, Ogam Ogat was released (unofficiallly). This release features two unedited jams from the Tago Mago sessions in Schloss Nörvenich, a castle near Cologne.

1. Auf Der Einbahnstrasse Part One (16:43)

2. Auf Der Einbahnstrasse Part Two (18:47)

Enjoy!