CAN: FLOW MOTION (1976)
1) I Want More; 2) Cascade
Waltz; 3) Laugh Till You Cry, Live Till You Die; 4) ...And More; 5) Babylonian
Pearl; 6) Smoke (Ethnological Forgery Series No. 59); 7) Flow Motion.
This is where the fans really went nuts — Can
scoring a commercial dance hit on the UK charts? Perfidy! But in fact, Flow Motion is quite a chivalrous and
tasteful continuation of the band's search for a compromise between musical experimentation
and public acceptance. Had most of these tracks appeared on a David Bowie
record, they would probably be encountered with praise by the critical
community, since Bowie was a «pop» artist by definition, and his embracing of
«progressive» values within a pop context was always welcome; on the other
hand, Can, who with these albums were sort of meeting «pop standards» halfway,
were scolded not because of the actual quality of the music, but because of their
trajectory, which is frankly unfair.
The trick is that Can are not simply playing funk, reggae, and pop on Flow Motion: they are playing Can-style
funk, reggae, and pop, which means that they will do everything possible to
populate these conventional musical structures with odd sounds and strange
atmospheres. Take the hit itself, ʻI Want Moreʼ — it's odd from the very start,
with the first rhythm guitar part sounding like an old Bo Diddley part from
ʻMonaʼ, and the second, joining in ten seconds later, sounding like a
contemporary Talking Heads funky groove. It's a simple combination, but somehow
from the very first start it adds a bit of a psychedelic dimension to the
track, where your mind gets trapped between the two interlocking rhythms and
tossed to and fro like a basketball. And that's just the beginning, because
then you get a New Wavish synth hook, ghostly echoey vocals, additional layers
of distorted guitars and keyboard loops — again, if your average dance track were produced with that much care and
creativity... well, it wouldn't be too good, because most people would be too
entranced to actually do much dancing.
Or ʻCascade Waltzʼ — it actually is a waltz, playing in diligent 3/4
time, but the rhythm guitar is chopping out... reggae chords, making this
arguably the first instance of an actual reggae waltz on record. With the
cascades in question probably symbolized by the slide guitars, which give the
whole thing a bit of a Hawaiian feeling, I am not even sure any more what it is
I am listening to: a bizarre stylistic combo with an atmosphere of lazy, dreamy,
colorful relaxation. For ʻLaugh Till You Cryʼ, Karoli picks up a Turkish baǧlama,
but the band carries on with a Caribbean stylistics, playing an equally relaxed
slow ska pattern that agrees very well with the song's slogan — "laugh
till you cry, live till you die", and when people tell you that, if you
call yourself Can, then you're supposed to keep on producing tracks that turn
your subconscious outside out and expose to the world its darkest, smelliest
corners, just let them know how much you care by writing more songs like
ʻBabylonian Pearlʼ (which sounds like the band's tribute to Roxy Music).
All right, if you do want some darkness,
there's always the title track, which seems to also have begun life as
variations on a ska/reggae groove, but is more in line with Can's traditional
ways of jamming. Largely instrumental, it builds upon the interlocking patterns
of Schmidt's keyboards, faintly resonating from some faraway corridors or deep
waterholes, and Karoli's heavily processed guitars, for some of which he uses
the wah-wah and the phasing effect at the same time, producing some fairly
devilish sounds. There's a Hendrix vibe here, too, and a Funkadelic one,
perhaps, but all in a nice shroud of Teutonic darkness; and whoever would want
to ask questions like "what are these Germans doing covering black
people's music?", well, just remember that the band's first vocalist was
actually black, and that the band's actual musical roots had always been in the
blues rather than in Bavarian folk songs or The
Ring.
If there's one single complaint I'd have to voice,
it's that for the first time, I do not notice the rhythm section all that much.
It's there, for sure, and doing a good job, but I do not feel a great deal of
involvement on the part of Czukay, and there's not a single jaw-dropping rhythm
pattern from Liebezeit, either (perhaps he was just getting the hang of that
whole reggae thing, and remained content to be relegated to quasi-apprentice
status for the time being). That is
not good, because ultimately Can is first and foremost about the rhythm, and
only later about everything else; and it is hardly a coincidence that Czukay's
duties would only diminish from then on, until his complete resignation from
active player status in 1978. But whatever might have been the reason for this
change, Flow Motion has plenty of
cool things going on to compensate, and remains indispensable listening, I'm
sure, for everyone who does not spend half of one's lifetime standing round the
corner and waiting for a nice occasion to shout SELLOUT! as if it really
mattered. Most definitely a thumbs up.
My first listen to this album many years ago was that of horror, being accustomed to their sound from the'classic' late 60s period up to 1974. To me, Flow Motion initially sounded like something from Olivia Newton John's 'Physical' period, but thankfully I've grown to appreciate that this album is quite a worthy piece in the Can catalog.
ReplyDeleteListening to "Smoke" today, I realised it reminded me of Tago Mago in some sections, and frankly I prefer this to Aumgn and Peking O. I might be crazy, but that's how I feel about "Smoke".
And the title track is a very cool way to conclude an interesting album that took many years for me to appreciate.