Customer Reviews

Ege Bamyasi

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It seems that when it comes to Can, at least on this site, the conversation tends to be basically "Tago Mago this, Tago Mago that," which strikes me as more than a bit unfair. Tago Mago certainly *is* a brilliant album that's more than worthy of all the praise it's generated, but Ege Bamyasi, while obviously different, is in my humble estimation every bit as excellent. This album was vastly ahead of its time at its release three decades ago, but given the fact that rock music (or at least its public face) has seemingly regressed to the point of unbearable stupidity the contrast is even more obvious now. This album (much like Tago Mago) doesn't even fit into the prog-rock classification of the time, as there's little here to remind one of Rush or Pink Floyd. True, there aren't any crazed fifteen-plus minute epics of the sort you'll find on Tago Mago, but the (somewhat) more song-oriented approach of this album clearly suits Can just fine.

Led by the manic, freakish vocals of Damo Suzuki, Ege Bamyasi bends genres with aplomb, effortlessly including pop, rock, jazz, and psychedelia into one insanely eclectic and addictive stew. This album revels in detail and unpredictability, as each song is overflowing with off-kilter time signatures and and unconventional structures. Plenty of rock bands that have emerged since Can have employed similar devices-the Flaming Lips, Blur, and the Boredoms come to mind-but Can were arguably both the first and the best. The songs here often take as their starting point only the bare bones of the traditional rock sound, but they're far from minimal, as Can were masters at fleshing out their material with decidedly non-rock instrumentation and bizarre use of tape loops.

While Ege Bamyasi may contain a mere seven songs and clock in at a relatively brief 40 minutes (about a half-hour less than Tago Mago), there's a lot of meat here, as every single track introduces an entirely distinctive and endlessly fascinating sound. Masterfully composed and sequenced, Ege Bamyasi veers wildly from one mood and style to another, but the results are always uniquely Can-esque (for lack of a better term). The opening double shot of Pinch and Sing Swan Song combines to form a perfect summation of Can's musical mission, as the first combines jazzy, driving percussion with Damo's swaggering vocals, while the second is a hushed, eerie mood piece led by sparse guitar picking and freaky atmospherics. The repetitious, vaguely upbeat One More Night is a quieter, easy-to-digest piece that provides a bit of a breather before the tense, dynamic-laden Vitamin C. Exploiting contrasts between light and dark in much the same way that made King Crimson darlings of the prog-rock scene, this latter song builds tension with some near-whispers from Damo and frantic drumming before exploding into a mantra of shouted vocals, off-timed drum hits, and funky basslines.

However, all of this brilliant material is just a buildup to the album's centerpiece, the brilliant tour de force that is Soup. Clocking in at about ten minutes, this song would be right at home on Tago Mago, as it's a sprawling, multifaceted epic that easily obliterates almost anything else that was coming out at the time. Crazed drumming, frightening shouts from Damo, screeching tape loops-it's all here, and that's just the song's first half. At about the five-minute mark, it disintegrates into an even scarier beast, as the tape loops get harsher, the instrumentation gets more eclectic, and Damo's vocals become more unhinged. By the end of the track he sounds like he's channeling some long-dead African deity while consuming massive quantities of peyote, and in this case that's a very good thing.

The album closes with two more straightforward, "poppier" songs in the form of I'm So Green and Spoon, but of course in this case the term "poppy" is entirely relative, as they still prove Can to be freakout masters of the highest order. Besides, after the aural and mental workout the first five tracks provide, a little rest is in oder anyway. In any case, Ege Bamyasi is masterpiece no matter how you slice it, a diverse, resolutely uncategorizable piece of music that defines the krautrock genre even as it stakes out its own musical ground. You simply must hear it before you die.

I used to listen to this album under the grand shadow of Can's masterpiece, Tago Mago. Both albums -- ur, CD's -- have now been remastered. I'd purchased a Tago Mago CD a couple years ago, but decided to buy Ege Bamyasi to see how good the remastering is.

Wow.

I had forgotten how powerful the songs and the performances are, but I was actually startled at how the drums, guitar, and bass jumped out of my speakers. I immediately got the remastered Tago Mago as well. Both albums feature Can at the height of their powers, both albums among the best that emerged from the Kraut Rock movement.

If you're not a Can fan yet, let the music, which is different than what you're used to, sink into your soul: listen to it a lot before evaluating it. If you ARE a Can fan already, I recommend these remasters highly.

Can's fourth album is something like a series of mellow '70's period extended grooves by Miles Davis run through a German psychedelic rock band filter with the trumpet replaced by the excentric (to say the least) vocals of Damo Suzuki. Unlike Miles, jazz or fusion there aren't any solos as such, rather this albums strength lies in it's rhythmic interplay and textural overlays. I find Ege Bamyasi to be at times brilliant, at times irritating due to Damo, somewhat overated, but never boring. Compared to the the album immediately preceding it, the masterpiece Tago Mago, it's looser, more laid back, the grooves more subdued and funky. This is a subtle album (crazed improv "Soup" notwithstanding) that may not immediately grab you but greatly rewards repeated listening. The album that followed it, the excellent Future Days, is somewhat more dreamy and textural. But although I prefer Tago Mago and Future Days, Ege Bamyasi wouldn't be a bad place at all to start if you're new to Can.

Can's second album with the infamous Damo Suzuki is quite simply their greatest achievement as a band, and the high point of krautrock. This is Can at their most focused and dare I say it...melodic. Whereas the album that preceeded this, Tago Mago, was a sprawling and long winded force of nature, Ege Bamyasi sees Can more song oriented, but no less off the wall. I would recommend this as the best place to start for the new Can fan (as I did), since there is plenty of great songs that standout on first listen. Then, I'd pick up Tago Mago, an album no less brilliant, but definetly more avant-garde. Ege Bamyasi was Can perfecting everything we loved about the band and jamming it into one easy to swallow pill.

As far as I'm concerned, this album is about the growth, harvesting, cooking and eating of a vegetable ... from the ***vegetable's*** point-of-view.

Sometime listen to this record imagining the above. Although not necessarily so specific, I like to think of myself as one of those Okra Shoots ("Okraschoten") you see on the cover. Getting "pinched" off of your mother plant, transported to the CANning factory, boiled up (losing your vitamin C), turning into soup, riding the spoon ... and entering the vegetable afterlife ...

Wow.

Of course there's no need to force any meaning onto the pure beauty of the music on this album, which not so much stands on its own thank you very much but towers over just about any other music every emitted by any other band before or since it was recorded. But if you do try the Okraschoten saga as another of the many levels on which this music exists, it's quite fun.

The thing that really takes my breath away, though, is the amazing photograph on the back of the original vinyl lp. It's a side profile photo of the band seemingly playing in concert, up on a smokey stage, lit by a single spotlight overhead, with crazy Damo dressed pretty in pink up at the front/left, the band playing on the back/right. With a raffish tuxedo-wearing balding fellow in-between, juggling three bowling pins high in the air. What I wouldn't do for a full-sized poster of that for my wall!

What is so appealing about this particular CAN cd is that the songs/compositions are each so distinct which is not always the case with avant-garde music.

I'm not a music critic nor am I particularly knowledgable about the 60's and 70's avant-garde scene (at least not beyond Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Zappa, Beefheart, Skip Spence & Brian Eno). I am, however, a huge fan of unique music when I find it and this (and Tago Mago) are my current favorite albums.

I run about ten miles a day and that is time enough to listen to Ege Bamyasi & Tago Mago back to back (I plan to buy Future Days next). Some days I prefer listening to my more melodious playlists but when I'm feeling like moving beyond the borderlands of the familiar CAN is the best sonic companion. This music is earthy but never merely ambient because the rhythms (drums especially) are so intense.

Occasionally I will think a particular song sounds like a precursor to Radiohead or some other modern group but I never feel like this music is trapped in the early seventies. Or, another way of saying that, is to say that the music does capture and preserve the seventies but only the best parts of the seventies: free form Jazz, progressive rock (the subtle kind not the pompous stadium filling kind), and the kinetic structures of much of the late seventies best punk ( the Buzzcocks are big CAN fans as are other punk and post punk groups). The music is eclectic in the best possible sense. Its never cold like some experimental music but always quirky and intriguing.

I would recommend Ege Bamyasi if you are new to this group. And if you like that then get Tago Mago.

*Sometimes experimental music is not particularly enjoyable but we listen to it because we think its good for us to stretch our minds, but this stuff is instantly infectious.

If your looking for some new music(even though ege bamyasi was in the early 70's) and your bored of the new crap that keeps coming out, You got to listen to Ege Bamyasi, its way ahead of its time, its early Floyd with an edge. You gotta have an open mind with the singer Damo Susuki, because alot of the words are hard to understand, but it fits the music."Gotta have it" My favorites are Vitamin C, Sing Swan Song and I'm So Green. Other Can CD's you should look into are Tago Mago and Future Days.

Originally released in 1972,this was Can's fourth record as well as their follow-up to 'Tago Mago'(see my review).Some really superbly written and played cuts here to fully take in(might take several spins)are "Pinch",liked Michael Karoli's(R.I.P.)stellar guitar solos,the somewhat stunning "Vitamin C" and this reissue's lengthiest track,the ten-minute "Soup".First rate German progressive kraut.After I listened to this CD a second time,I realized that 'Ege Bamyasi' may have very well been a heavy influence on later bands like Gary Numan,Pere Ubu,Public Image Ltd. and Stereolab.Silly cover,don't you agree?

You were right, but nothing compares to these 4 white boys from Germany. If you haven't heard of Can yet, you must be living under a rock. For the select few of you out there, a brief educational journey into the world of Can. Can was an experiemental rock band from Germany in the late 60's/early 70's that redifined music in so many ways. People consider them part of the Krautrock movement. I don't buy into this ideal. Can defies genres more than Tom Waits. You have the first LP "Monster Movie" which is the viscous rocker album. Then you have the more atmospheric "Soundtracks" the second LP from the group. "Tago Mago" the first Can album I bought and hooked me from the start. It's the most experimental album, but at the same time, the album where they finally developed into their sound. Ege Bamyasi is Can's fourth full length. There's not one flaw on this album and I dare you to find one. "Pinch" is perhaps the greatest thing recorded ever. "Vitamin C" will put anything that you consider a jam session to shame. "I'm So Green" is the funkiest and most wild thing I've ever heard in my life. Finally there is the last track on the album, which is also the hit single, if you will, "Spoon." This song is so funky and fun it will blow your mind. Can is like a mixture of ambience, funk, fusion, reggae, rock, straight jazz, noise, and krautrock...I suppose. I fold under pressure easily. Can had 2 singers which divided the band into two seperate entities. In my opinion Can was at their peak with Suzuki at vocals. The three best albums are Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi, and Future Days (the album after this one.) The first 2 albums are good, but they hadn't quite developed their sound yet. After Future Days it was a slow decline for me, still can is a band that like The Soft Machine, The Velvet Underground, King Crimson, and even Pink Floyd changed music in the late 60's. This album is one of those that will change your life! Go out and get this immediately...along with Tago Mago and Future Days too!

Ege Bamyasi (1972) finds Can in the midst of a creative peak that spanned 1971-1973 and is an excellent blend of their experimental side and the atmospheric approach adopted on the excellent Future Days album (1973). The musicians on Ege Bamyasi comprise the "classic" Can lineup: Holger Czukay (bass guitar); Michael Karoli (electric and acoustic guitars); Jaki Leibzeit (drums and percussion); Irmin Schmidt (synthesizers and organ); and lead vocalist Damo Suzuki.

The seven tracks on the album range in length from 3'03" to 10'25". Musically, this album is loaded with bouncy and hypnotic grooves set down by Jaki and Holger, which are offset nicely by the eccentric vocal style of Damo. There are also quiet and meditative tracks (Sing Swan Song), and heavier tracks that recollect bits and pieces of the experimental segments of Tago Mago (1971). The short track, I'm so Green is the most lighthearted and cheery tune on the album.

This is an excellent album by Can that is very highly recommended along with the fan favorite Tago Mago and the atmospheric Future Days (which is my personal favorite).