CAN: RITE TIME (1989)
1) On The Beautiful Side Of A
Romance; 2) The Withoutlaw Man; 3) Below This Level (Patient's Song); 4) Movin'
Right Along; 5) Like A New Child; 6) Hoolah Hoolah; 7) Give The Drummer Some;
8) In The Distance Lies The Future.
Maybe the best thing about this record is its
title — while we could certainly question the idea of 1989 really being the
right time for a reunion of the original Mooney-era Can, there is no question whatsoever that most of
Can's music always represented a musical rite,
and unless you take it as such, you probably lack the full potential of getting
into the groove. The good news, then, is that this reunion, which really took
place in 1986 somewhere in the southern side of France (where, as ʽHoolah
Hoolahʼ tells us, they don't wear pants), fully complies with the «rite» thing
and largely consists of danceable grooves presided over by a mad shaman
(Mooney) who is, at least formalistically, still capable of sounding in deep
communication with the spirits.
Nevertheless, the record was largely either
ignored or reviled upon release, and critical opinion has not warmed up to it
in recent decades — maybe because nobody really bothered: «reunion» albums are
typically looked upon with suspicion, and, unlike «forgotten masterpieces» from
a band's long-gone golden age, once condemned to oblivion, they can never be
redeemed. The thing is, Rite Time is
thoroughly retro-oriented: most of it sounds like the idea was really to make Monster Movie Vol. 2, and the very
approach, for a band known for its relentless exploration of pathways into the
future, must have seemed like heresy. When people heard it, and it sounded like
Monster Movie without being as good
as Monster Movie, well... people had
plenty of far more relevant stuff to listen to in 1989.
Listening to Rite Time in retrospect, though, with the fields of time now
compressed and flattened so that the chronological gaps of the 20th century
are no longer as huge as they once seemed — the album is mighty pleasant. It does sound like classic Can a lot: same
wild and complex work from the rhythm section, same bizarre mix of electronic
and acoustic keyboards from Schmidt, same array of psychedelic guitar tones
from Karoli, and not a single teeny-tiny indication that this was recorded in a
completely new decade: apparently, the guys never placed much trust in either
the digital synthesizer epidemics or the pop-metal guitar tone (for which, now
that we look back at it, they really
should be commended). Nor are there any signs of continuing passion for their
late Seventies' excesses: Rosko and Rebop were not invited (well, Rebop could
not even if they wanted to, having been dead since 1983), and neither disco
grooves nor Caribbean dance rhythms are any longer part of the masterplan.
The actual grooves range from decent to occasionally
excellent: ʽOn The Beautiful Side Of A Romanceʼ, for instance, is built upon a
convincingly grim interaction between Czukay's «earthquake» bass rumbles and
Karoli's responses, with further keyboard and guitar overdubs like sets of dark
clouds gliding across the sky, periodically ruptured by bass thunderbolts.
ʽLike A New Childʼ uses the guitar only sparsely, for thin supportive lead
lines and occasional gentle pings, as life largely takes place at the
intersection of the steady rollin' bass and (this time the white rather than dark) clouds of Schmidt's keyboards; the result
is almost an ambient soundscape that kind of gives an idea of what Future Days may have sounded like had
they thought of doing something like that in 1969. And while I cannot say that
the title of ʽGive The Drummer Someʼ is completely justified (Liebezeit is
really no more active there than everywhere else on the album), the groove,
completely devoid of any memorable theme as such, still creates magical tension
— Czukay's overdubs of isolated guitar lines and keyboard bits, where anything might jump out at you at any
given moment of time, show the old master's hand as efficiently as anything.
Mooney's contributions remain the most questionable
elements — I do not mind the aging or weakening of his voice, since he almost never
used it for conventional «singing» in the first place, but it does occasionally
come across as grating, particularly on ʽRomanceʼ, where the stereotypically
«Jamaican» lamentation bits do not mesh well with the music. Something like
ʽThe Withoutlaw Manʼ will produce different impressions depending on how much
you are ready to not take this deconstructed tale of a well-known gun seriously
— Mooney sounds more like a babbling village idiot on that one than a
diplomated shaman, but ignore him or come to terms with him, and behind that
there's still a cool groove and a great «twirling» guitar line from Karoli
that's got some of that «bluesy slyness» to it, for no particular reason but
still feeling good.
Perhaps the critics were mostly appalled at the
idea of such an obvious musical joke as ʽHoolah Hoolahʼ, whose music and lyrics
really fit in better with the likes of Weird Al than one of the world's most
revolutionary musical bands. But even as a musical joke, it still got a hell of
a poisonous guitar tone and a hilariously «Near Eastern» dance melody executed
on Schmidt's organ, and besides, musical jokes had been in Can's repertoire for
quite some time now; did ʽCan-Canʼ fail to already prepare you for this? Plus...
it's catchy. Sort of.
Anyway, by the time we get to the somewhat
ambiguous conclusion of ʽIn The Distance Lies The Futureʼ (a musically and vocally
confused track that pretty much indicates nobody has any real clue as to what
that future might be, and I concur), I feel convinced that there was a point behind the reunion. I'm not
sure what that point was, exactly (other than the obvious «we still Can»), but
the album never feels like a bunch of washed-up has-beens desperately trying to
rekindle the old unrekindlable magic. It never feels like a totally
self-assured and contemporarily relevant bold musical statement, either, but
it... well, in the overall context it also gives this feeling of
well-roundedness, where the band has come full circle, and its long, strange
trip eventually brings them back on the same platform from where they
skyrocketed twenty years back. Now they can really
pack it up and go home with one last reassuring thumbs up — and, indeed, there's
never been any attempt at another reunion ever since (not that it would have
been even technically possible since Karoli's demise in 2001, but that's
actually a different matter).
I've always liked this album. It's a little lightweight, but it's fun and imaginative. Seriously better than their last two albums in that regard, beyond the hilarity of "Can Can."
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