Can: Future Days - 1974
I prefer this album from Can to their more popular Tago Mago. It is more laid-back and subtly captivating in its quietly insistent soundscapes.
Future Days is a gently rhythmic and at times rather delicious serving of ambient music, featuring subtle percussion and guitar, as well as understated keyboards and a great, deep, throbbing bass line. It never annoys, this one, it just sort of washes warmly over you. This is in direct contrast to some of the more grating parts of Tago Mago. The vocals are, though - in true Can style - mumbling, whiny and indistinct. You can hear a bit of something about future days, but it doesn't matter, does it? The vocals somehow suit the whole thing.
Spray is again nicely experimental, with an avant-jazz feel to it, particularly on the keyboards. As was the case on Tago Mago, I am really impressed with the drums here. The whole thing is like Kraftwerk meeting Santana from the same period and it takes electronic music to new levels. Can, notably, had an instinct for rhythm that Neu! or Tangerine Dream did not have.
Moonshake was an odd thing - a short Can single and a quirkily good one it is too, with some slightly incompressible but soothing vocals sung over a really infectious, groovy beat, like nothing else one has ever heard up to this point. It sounds like an off-the-wall post punk offering from six or seven years later. I can hear distinct shades of Roxy Music's The Bogus Man in there too as well as some early Roxy, King Crimson or X-Ray Spex parping saxophone.
The eighteen minute-plus Bel Air is back to a very chilled-out vibe, like something Groove Armada would incorporate into some dance rhythms many years in the future. The drum sounds remind me a lot of post-2000 dance music (not that I know much about that, mind). About half way through it loses it for a while and some buzzing flies keep us entertained before the music comes back with a slight Chinese air about it. It is all very clever, inspired and inventive and I like it. Would I return to it over and over, though? Probably not, but I do appreciate its seductive intricacies. That said, I have played Future Days, the track, several times, so it must be taking effect.
