The Can Box celebrates the German combo's thirtieth birthday in
style. It is deeply flawed, but if you're a serious fan you won't want to
be without it.
The weighty package (one videocassette, one 478 page book,
and a folio with two CDs of live audience recordings covering the years
from 1972 to 1977) fulfills the hidden imperative of all boxed sets - that
it's heavy enough to function as a door stop - better than any other mega
collection around. The book is something of a letdown; the English portion
of the tri-lingual text, which runs down each page in three parallel
columns, is awkwardly translated and hard to follow. However, the lengthy
interviews with each founding member are chockablock with juicy information
and provide glimpses into each man's personality.
If you're more visually
than verbally oriented, you'll still want to check it out for the many
otherwise unpublished pictures. The video includes an hour of interview
material (mostly in German and French, with English subtitles) with
everyone in the group; it does a solid if not spectacular job of describing
the band's history and hints at the creative ferment and interpersonal
volatility that yielded their music. The tape's second hour
documents a free concert from 1972. It features the inimitably mush-mouthed
diction and terrifyingly tight-crotched jumpsuit of Japanese vocalist Damo
Suzuki, who especially shines on a 14 minute version of "Spoon" (which is
also on disc two).
The two CDs, which are Can's first official live
documents, are made up exclusively of audience tapes. Although hardly of
audiophile caliber, they've been tweaked enough to be quite listenable. The
earlier performances capture the band at a peak. Can never bothered with
set lists, but instead wove bits of their recorded work into lengthy
improvisations. What set their best concerts (such as the 1972 performances
preserved here) apart from those of other jam bands was the willingness of
each member to subordinate his virtuoso instrumental skills to the good of
the music; instead of showing off, they funneled their skills into the
spontaneous creation of startling dynamic shifts and utterly unstoppable
rhythms. Can's concerts were much more focused on sustaining hypnotic,
driving grooves than is evident from their studio albums. Regrettably, some
of the 1975 and 1977 selections reveal that as the band aged, certain members
abandoned their essential restraint in order to play wanky solos over glib
funk.
So if you're already a devotee, get The Can Box; if you're a
novice, try one of their studio records first.
If you like Can, check out:
Holger Czukay Good Morning Story
Miles Davis Bitches Brew
Can Ege Bamyasi
Can Monster Movie
