Monster Movie Can Artist

Though {|Monster Movie|} was the first full-length album in what would become a sprawling and often genre-defining discography, {|Can|} were on a level well ahead of the curve even in their most formative days. Recorded and released in 1969, {|Monste... Read more

Though {|Monster Movie|} was the first full-length album in what would become a sprawling and often genre-defining discography, {|Can|} were on a level well ahead of the curve even in their most formative days. Recorded and released in 1969, {|Monster Movie|} bears many of the trademarks that {|Can|} would explore as they went on, as well as elements that would set the scene for the burgeoning Krautrock movement. This would be the only album {|Can|}'s first singer {|Malcolm Mooney|} would sing the entirety of, as he was replaced by {|Damo Suzuki|} by the time of 1970's {|Soundtracks|}, leaving the band after going through a highly unstable time. {|Mooney|} was known for his erratic ways, and some of that mania undoubtedly comes through here, with his caterwauling howls on the unexpectedly garage-influenced Outside My Door as well as the sung-spoken pseudo-poetry rants of album opener Father Cannot Yell. Riding a particularly {|Velvet Underground|} vibe, Father Cannot Yell sounds like post-punk before punk even existed. {|Irmin Schmidt|}'s brittle keyboard squalls and dissonant rhythms and {|Mooney|}'s buried recitations predated {|the Fall|}, {|Swell Maps|}, the noise scene, and generations of difficult sound by years and in some cases decades. {|Holger Czukay|}'s pensive basslines are also an already distinctive calling card of the band on this debut, providing a steadfast glue for the barrages of noisy tones, edits, and pulses the record offers from all angles. The 20-minute album closer Yoo Doo Right is an enormous highlight, cementing the locked-in hypnotic exploration {|Can|} would extrapolate on for the rest of their time and come to be known for. {|Mooney|}'s raspy vocals range from whispery incantations to throaty rock & roll shouts, building with the band into an almost mantra-level meditation as the song repeats its patterns and multi-layered grooves into what feels like infinity. Legend has it that the final side-long version of the song was edited down from a six-hour recording session focusing on that tune alone. Given the level of commitment to experimentation {|Can|} would go on to show, it's not hard to believe they'd play one song for six hours to find its core, nor is it unfathomable that {|Monster Movie|} was the more accessible album they recorded after their first attempts were deemed too out there to be commercially released. Even in their earliest phases, {|Can|} were making their name by blowing away all expectations and notions that rock & roll had limits of any kind. ~ Fred Thomas Less