Thursday, April 9, 2009

Yes We Can



















Enjoyed one of the best games of football I´ve ever seen last night. My beloved FC Barcelona met Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League quarter finals at home in Camp Nou and totally outclassed the opposition. Ninety thousand plus spectators (me among them of course) could hardly believe their eyes as the most lethal forward line in Europe (Messi, Henri and Eto´o) secured a 4-0 win in grand style, which makes next Tuesday´s return more or less a formality. We played many a great match this season already, but this was definitely football from another planet. As they say in Catalan: Ser del Barça es, el millor que hi ha... The semis await.

To rub it in a bit more, here are some tracks from my fave krautrock ensemble, the mighty Can. Father Cannot Yell stems from the ´69 debut Monster Movie, when Malcolm Mooney was still their vocalist. Nice, but only the beginning. By ´71 the wild Japanese Damo Suzuki took over behind the microphone, and Can really found its form. Tago Mago´s Mushroom shows exactly why Can has a reputation for originality and rhythmic cunning. "I´m gonna keep my distance!"

Follow-up Ege Bamyasi (´72), with that beautiful album cover of a can of yummy ladyfingers, is just as good, as the dreamlike Sing Swan Song proves. Next year´s Future Days is probably my favourite Can album though. Ambient avant-la-lettre? Something like that. The hypnotic Dizzy Dizzy from their nearly-as-perfect ´74 effort Soon Over Babaluma finds guitarist Michael Karoli on whispery vocals. "Don´t throw ashtrays at me..."

And as a bonus track, here´s the exotic Persian Love from Can bassist and producer Holger Czukay´s highly original solo album Movies (´79). Auf wiedersehen!

Can - Father Cannot Yell MP3
Can - Mushroom MP3
Can - Sing Swan Song MP3
Can - Future Days MP3
Can - Dizzy Dizzy MP3
Holger Czukay - Persian Love MP3

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