CAN: UNLIMITED EDITION (1968-1973; 1976)
1) Gomorrha; 2) Doko E; 3) LH
702 (Nairobi/München); 4) I'm Too Leise; 5) Musette; 6) Blue Bag (Inside
Paper); 7) E.F.S. No. 27; 8) TV Spot; 9) E.F.S. No. 7; 10) The Empress And The
Ukraine King; 11) E.F.S. No. 10; 12) Mother Upduff; 13) E.F.S. No. 36; 14)
Cutaway; 15) Connection; 16) Fall Of Another Year; 17) E.F.S. No. 8; 18)
Transcendental Express; 19) Ibis.
Can had originally opened their vaults as early
as 1974 — with an LP called Limited
Edition that was, appropriately, limited to a few thousand copies and
targeted at the hardcore fanbase they had developed. Two years later, the
collection was expanded to the size of a double album and re-released as Unlimited Edition, even though the
fanbase did not exactly double in size over the 1975-76 period. However, in May
1976 Can were no longer on the cutting edge of experimental pop music, and were
probably thinking in earnest about the systematic preservation and protection
of their rich legacy... and so, here you go.
Frankly speaking, much of this record is crap.
But what can you expect of chaotic
odds and ends, salvaged from years of hunting after inspiration in the confines
of a recording studios? Some days there's plenty of game (and it usually ends
up on your regular albums), and some days it's just a bunch of meaningless, emotionally
uninterpretable sound collections (and that's what usually stays in the
vaults). And even if something there does
make sense, it is still going to sound inferior compared to all the stuff that
you trusted far enough to polish for official release.
Many of these snippets come branded as parts of
«Ethnological Forgery Series», whose ironic title suggests that these are
parodies / avantgardist imitations / deconstructions of various genres of world
music — thus, ʽNo. 27ʼ, with Suzuki on vocals, is built around quasi-deep-folk-Japanese
singing; ʽNo. 7ʼ and ʽNo. 11ʼ are quasi-Near Eastern pastiches; ʽNo. 36ʼ is a
take on New Orleanian jazz; and ʽNo. 8ʼ is a percussion-only bit of
pseudo-Caribbean fun. These are all short, fun, usually pointless, and always
harmless — but I couldn't say the same about the 17-minute long ʽCutawayʼ,
where similar and other snippets have been sewn together into one large and
totally incoherent sheet of short grooves, mood pieces, and studio hooliganry.
Without any central unifying theme, mood, or purpose, the very title ʽCutawayʼ certainly
surmises ʽThrowawayʼ, which should have been its real title, even though I'm
sure there must be people out there who'd swear by this as the ultimate Can
experience. (I'd take the amateurish, but sincere experimentation of the
studio half of Ummagumma over it,
though, any day).
So is there anything
here of real worth? Actually, yes: several tracks represent more or less complete
experiences, and could make respectable companions to regular albums from the
respective era. Namely, from the Monster
Movie period we have ʽThe Empress And The Ukraine Kingʼ, an absurdist funky
rave with Mooney at his fussiest and some kick-ass guitar overdubs from Karoli;
ʽMother Upduffʼ, a bizarre spoken tale of one family's unforgettable European
adventures that sounds like a cross between similar tales by the Velvet
Underground and The Cheerful Insanity Of
Giles, Giles & Fripp; and two perfectly reasonable pop songs
(ʽConnectionʼ, with a Stonesy vibe, and ʽFall Of Another Yearʼ, with some truly
autumnal-mood interplay between Holger's bass and Karoli's acoustic guitar).
The Suzuki era is represented less adequately;
from the peak years, only ʽTV Spotʼ, with its relentless paranoid groove and
one of Suzuki's most comprehensible vocal performances, stands out, but I don't
really see any place for it on Tago Mago.
However, ʽGomorrhaʼ from 1973 would definitely have fit on Future Days, and I am actually sorry not to see it there — with
those sad, distant, ghostly slide guitar wails and echoey crescendos it is as
otherworldly evocative as the best stuff on that album, and might indeed be the
best composition here (which is probably why it serves as the album opener — to
lure you into a sea of ultimately broken promises). Finally, the album ends
with two later tracks that are at least intriguing: ʽTranscendental Expressʼ,
completely dominated by a lead banjo part, sounds like psychedelic
deconstructed country-western, and the lengthy ʽIbisʼ from 1975 shares the creepy
nighttime mystique of the best tracks on Landed,
even if it's a bit of an overkill at its nine minutes.
The best spots for these individual tracks,
though, would have been bonus slots on the respective albums — taken together,
they do remind us of the vast scope of this band's interests and of its refusal
to be strictly tied to any conventions, but they do not exactly kick the ground
from under your feet; and as for all the short snippets in between, it is not
clear to me if they add to the aweinspiring brilliance of the Can kaleidoscope
or simply act as irresponsible nuisances, preventing you from dedicating your
complete attention to the good stuff. In any case, I suppose that this is
pretty much what anybody would expect from an album of Can outtakes —
diversity, unpredictability, and a total and utter lottery when it comes to
spiritual impact.
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