Delay

Performer: Can
Engineer: Holger Czukay
Distributor: Caroline Distribution

Notes: Can: Malcolm Mooney (vocals); Michael Karoli (guitar); Irmin Schmidt (keyboards); Holger Czukay (bass); Jaki Leibzeit (drums). Recorded at Schloss Norvenich, Germany in 1968 & 1969. Although recorded in the late '60s, the material included on Can's Delay...1968 did not appear commercially until 1981. A collection of cuts featuring early vocalist Malcolm Mooney, these seven songs are among the very first Can tunes ever recorded; while nowhere near as intricate or assured as the group's later work, the visceral energy of tracks like the deranged "Uphill" and "Butterfly" is undeniable. ~ Jason Ankeny A ragged-but-right Can recorded the material found on DELAY before and after completing 1968's official debut, MONSTER MOVIE. Literally delayed, this important document of the band's beginnings was edited from archival tapes by bassist and co-founder Holger Czukay and didn't see release until 1981. It's a surprisingly strong collection that's redolent of the group's influences (Stooges, Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, perhaps the 13th Floor Elevators) and sheds light on Can's formative years. "Butterfly" kicks off DELAY in an immediately recognizable mode. Czukay, superb drummer Jaki Liebezeit, and guitarist Michael Karoli lock into a mesmerizing, maze-like groove while expatriate American artist Malcolm Mooney extemporizes a parched mantra about how "dying butterfly began to fly," and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt fills the spaces with dissonant, seesawing electronics. If possible, "Little Star of Bethlehem," a spoken/sung saunter through feedback-streaked Band of Gypsies territory, and the fragment "Pnoom" are even more art-damaged. Schmidt's synthesizers lend an appealingly woozy psychedelic glaze to "Thief," an ambitious number couched in Karoli's spindly, melodic phrasing. "Man Named Joe" is warped rockabilly with a falsetto scat and wheezy, harmonica-like synth. The irresistible "Nineteen Century Man" and "Uphill" mine an arty funk-punk groove between James Brown and Iggy Pop.

The Wire (p.53) - "'Nineteenth Century Man' is raw and expressionist avant garage rock..."

Though they were one of the key bands of the 1970s Krautrock movement, Can always saw themselves as individualists. They were influenced more by composers like Stockhausen than by psychedelic rock, but this seminal German band combined their avant-garde tendencies with rock trappings and funk-inflected rhythms in an amazingly natural way, influencing subsequent generations of iconoclasts.

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