As far as kick-ass statements go, I'm prettysure Can never made a stronger one. TagoMago is a dark-'n'-brooding piece, exploring the world of insanity andbrutality that is so wonderfully encapsulated in the sleeve photo: see how itseems to picture an infra-red portrait of an individual spitting out pieces ofhis own brain, but that same portrait also has the shape of a nuclear mushroomcloud? Well, you could dream of something like that just listening to some ofthis music, without taking a single look at the cover. Technically, Tago Mago completes the transformation of Can from a jam-basedoutfit into a «jam-splice-based» unit: most of the songs here haveimprovisational studio jams as their foundation, but all of them are thentaken by Czukay and «treated» with additional overdubs, shortened and splicedwith artistic purposes, as if Holger knew very well which moments of thesessions «meant» something, which ones had to be embellished to mean something,and which ones were senseless and had to be cut. You could, perhaps, call thata waste of time if most of the material did not indeed sound so awesome — agreat lesson for so many psychedelic bands who thought that the very fact of agroup of free people freely experimenting in the studio should necessarily result in great art.Amazingly, despite all the doctoring, all the tracks still preserve a certainraw, visceral quality to them, which we should ascribe to Czukay's absolute professionalism. When I'm talking about raw/visceral, I, ofcourse, mean primarily the rhythm section. If ʻMother Skyʼ used a simplistic4/4 beat and could still put you in a trance any second, then Tago Mago shows how they can do thesame thing with slightly trickier means.
In particular, ʻHalleluhwahʼ,stretched over the entire second side of the LP, rides on an absolute monsterof a groove, captured so brilliantly you can almost feel Liebezeit's entiredrumkit rattling and wobbling on its platform, while the bass is pumping up afeeling of inescapable doom. Honestly, the rest does not even matter all thatmuch — there are some fine, diverse guitar solos in all sorts of styles andtonalities, there's Suzuki spewing crazy desperation ('searching for mybrother, yes I am!' ) all over the place, but my attention (and spirit)just remain chained to that groove all the way through (there's a very shortbit early on in the song where the groove disappears for a moody pianointerlude, and it almost makes me sad — fortunately, it's just a thirty secondsplice). How the heck is it even humanly possible to play that sort of stuff sounfalteringly for such a long time? Must be far more difficult to get yourselfthat disciplined than going all-out crazy ala Keith Moon. You have to keep that message very firmly inmind when listening to the second LP, because I vividly remember myself hatingʻAumgnʼ and ʻPeking Oʼ — why on earth, thought I, when we have here easily the best rhythm section of 1971 barnone, do we have to waste so much time on two astral freakouts that feature norhythm section whatsoever?
Like Soundtracks,Tago Mago also ends with somethingrelatively close to a «normal» moody tune, the drone-based ʻBring Me Coffee Or Teaʼ,where things sort of calm down after the storm, but clearly indicating thatthis is just a pause, as the madness dies down because the madman hastemporarily run out of energy and is now quietly rocking back and forth in adazed, depressed, zombie-like state, his mind quietly preparing for psychotic phasetwo. ʻShe Brings The Rainʼ was not exactly a happy song, but it reflected acertain mode of inner peace and quiet; ʻBring Me Coffee Or Teaʼ ends Can'salleged masterpiece with a musical cliffhanger, or, at least, a clear indicationthat this disturbed state of mind is here to stay for a long, long time. Paradoxically, perhaps, Tago Mago is far from the most «typical» Can album. The band'sflirt with musical insanity would go on for a brief while, but overall, futurereleases would become more and more disciplined, more concentrated on thegroove than the atmosphere; and if the atmosphere were still present, it wouldrather be an otherworldly atmosphere than this horrid feeling of being trappedinside a madman's mind. Since rock music and rock criticism has this longhistory of flirting with darkness and insanity, it is not surprising that Tago Mago has become, for so manypeople, the Can album par excellence;yet in reality, it represents but one particular stage of evolution for theband, although for Damo Suzuki, it was certainly his shining hour of glory (hisvocal presence on the following two albums being far less important). Thatsaid, on the «Great Mad Albums» shelf that was so densely populated in the lateSixties and early Seventies, Tago Magohas itself quite a place of honor — thumbs up, totally. I have to say, Monster Movie kind of annoyed me and I didn't listen to Soundtracks, so I was very hesitant to jump into TM.
I have to say, 'Enjoyment' is not exactly the word that applies, but it didn't kill me either. I actually got most of it. Some of the music is actually pretty decent. I like the sitar sound that pops up a lot, especially on Paperhouse. Not a huge of fan of the tinny drum sound, but might have been my phones. And Damo doesn't freak me out as much as I thought he would.
His lyrics are no more impenetrable and obscure than most of Jon Anderson's shtick. And at least he's saying something, even if it is mad babbling most of the time. Peking O did in fact make me laugh, although I doubt that was the intent. And I'm weird, but Aumgn made me think of a great fat lumbering beast wallowing and moaning in its hole. I guess everyone has their own mad echoes. Not essential listening to me, but not as repulsive as I expected. I guess it helped to be doing repetitive mindless Motorikarbeit to appreciate it's twisted logic.
AnonymousSpeaking from the perspective of a conventional listener, this album had scared the shit out of me even before I actually found enough guts to finally get down to listen to it. But I did, eventually and well, I've heard some twisted stuff before (Gong's 'Camembert Electrique' for example) but this album blows them away for two main reasons:1. You can actually get SOME amount of true enjoyment while listening to this stuff (the rhythm section really helps on that one).2. Unlike things like Captain Beefheart's 'Trout Mask Replica' (which I find overrated as hell) it takes your mind to certain places - weird and scary places but places nontheless and not just assaults you with some pointless weirdness for weirdness' sake. There are traces of genius here, whether they came about accidentally or not.And Peking O is a little man trapped in one of the forgotten rooms inside your mind, furiously trying to get out. I'm glad he's there, actually.
Can Tago Mago Blogspot Pop Songs
Can’s influence is well known and far-reaching and the impact they made on music is felt today as keenly as ever has been. They themselves have always been impossible to classify and reflecting this, the scope of artists who in recent years have cited Can as a major influence is varied. Of all the band’s oeuvre, Tago Mago has been most often cited as an influence for a host of artists including John Lydon, Radiohead, The Fall, Ariel Pink, Fuck Buttons, Sonic Youth, Factory Floor and Queens Of The Stone Age.
Can are pretty much my favourite band of their era. The mother-band of sorts; at their peak everything they touched turned to gold.
1971 saw the coming of one of music's best experiments of all time; a double LP by the name of Tago Mago. Some great reading here from:What can you say about Can? About The Can? Because, make no mistake, they are the definite article. Their name is an acronym of Communism, Anarchism, Nihilism. Or it’s the German word for “love”. Or an African word for “life”.
Or something you keep beer in. On the cover of Ege Bamyasi it’s a tin of okra. Can formed because of an argument between a music teacher and his student. The student said The Beatles were more radical than Stockhausen, the teacher laughed, they formed a band. They recruited the greatest drummer in the world (Jazz-trained—instilled with the motto “never repeat, never repeat” from the day he picked up sticks. And when given the freedom to play how he wanted?
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Decided to repeat forever.) and a giant black American singer, a sculptor evading the draft by travelling Europe. They recorded in a castle, strange nursery-rhyme inverting songs about getting high with Mary, about your father being unborn, weird, European psychedelic junctions. 20-minute jams about nothing in particular but keyed in to the rhythm of the universe. The singer couldn’t take the stress, or something, and left. The rest of Can spotted a Japanese man shouting at people in the street, and asked him to join their band. He did, and proceeded to sing in a made-up language for the next five years.
(Later he would find religion, and become a Jehovah’s Witness, which is the mentalist inversion of Americans or Europeans “getting” Buddhism or Taoism.)Everyone has stolen from Can. Chinese radicals pdf.
Because seriously that’s a lot of words to describe music that says only one thing, and that’s “I went to art school and You need to know about it.” It’s weird, It abandons the rules. It’s very satisfied about itself. When it clicks two simple acoustic guitar chords to a saxophone solo, you know it’s done for the ecstacy of all the chin scratching intellectuals in the world. Love it because it makes you interesting and different. Love it even more because most people will never get it.
Your special. The world will never understand your innate genius. Stupid world! More saxophones pls! This is not the first @ur(T) release I’ve encountered, and it won’t be the last, but it’s definitely something I try and avoid. See I’ve never really fully got this type of music. I can dig the artist that dip their toes into art school shenaniganry like say Sonic Youth or Crass, but full on @ur(T) turns me off.
Can Tago Mago Blogspot Pops
I have nothing against experimentation in music. Hell, Can is one of my favorite bands (and I do indeed on occasion listen to the second record of Tago Mago too).
Mago Tago Baby
But the experimentation of @ur(T) always seems egoic, like the strangeness is done for a “look at me, I’m deep” effect rather than any actual boundary pushing. Okay, okay, I’ve been pretty hard on this lady, but it’s not all bad.
This album opens with a brilliant post punk take on Indian music. It’s pretty brilliant and i have never heard a mashing of post punk style guitars and indian classical music, all wrapped up in a catchy pop structure.
Also, throughout the rest of the album there are interesting textures here and there. The odd bottom basement synth will stumble on some cool sound or the odd guitar or sax will play something else interesting. But these pieces are few and far between, and I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that each time i listened to this, I was constantly checking how many songs were left, and wishing there were fewer. That’s especially damning considering this record is only 35 minutes long.
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