Can
Future Days

THE REVIEW

Talking about an album like Can's Future Days is not easy. Besides being the fifth work of Holger Czucay & company, Future Days is a pure concentration of genius and experimentation, resulting in something simply unthinkable for any record by any band. At least in 1973. In short, whether they are Terminators sent back in time or simply incredible pioneers, Can manage to produce a stratospheric and absolutely perfect album, at least thirty years ahead of any work from that period, and still today a source of inspiration (and "plundering") for numerous artists in the contemporary music scene.

Four tracks for a total duration of thirty-four minutes, the Can recipe, at first glance, seems uncommitted and within everyone's reach, but a thorough analysis of their music is enough to discourage such a simplistic approach to the whole. Just listen to the long initial title track, in fact, to be carried away by its nine explosive minutes, based on funky danceable and obsessive rhythms, hypnotic percussion, and endless progressions with a vague jazz-fusion flavor, for which the simple definition of "free-form rock" seems tighter than ever. The subsequent short tracks, "Spray" and "Moonshake," are two pearls of rare splendor, the first characterized by a jazz-percussive delirium, the second by sonic minimalism, frenetic rhythms, and Michael Karoli's usual engaging guitar, which almost serves as a background, a futuristic electro-funk at the service of Damo Suzuki's almost whispered voice. Applause-worthy. But the best is yet to come and is found in the final and endless "Bel Air," a wild twenty-minute suite, in which Can's cosmic rock reaches perfection, thanks above all to the incredible drumming performances of the superlative Jaki Liebezeit.

And so it comes to an end, amidst super smooth guitars, crazy rhythms, and bird chirping (yes, you heard right!!), with the desire to listen to this absolute masterpiece over and over again, to discover all its nuances, even the most hidden ones, and to attempt to understand what was brewing in Czukay & company's heads in the early '70s. A monumental work, in short, this Future Days, a direct development of the sound evolutions already proposed to us with the previous Ege Bamyasi and, above all, the definitive consecration of Can in legend, their definitive entry into that history of music that, at times, does not pay proper homage to such psychotics of this caliber. Essential.