Customer Reviews

Future Days

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'Future Days', the last Can album that featured the vocals of the maniacal Damo Suzuki, is easily the most subtle and quiet album they ever released. Damo even keeps his vocals down to a near whisper, instead of them being directly in the forefront like on previous albums. 'Future Days' is also the least experimental album of Can's career. Instead of interjecting the album with weird (and sometimes nauseating), avant garde noisescapes, they choose to par the album down to its bare minimum. There are only 4 tracks on 'Future Days' and the vocals are few and far between.

Side one contains 3 of these songs, including the beautiful title track, the haunting 'Spray', and the short, upbeat 'Moonshake' (the funkiest Can ever got). Side two contains one of the great mood peices in rock history, 'Bel Air'. This 20 minute song, which is divided into 3 distinct sections, touches on many genres, including ambient, which at the time didn't even exist.

These four tracks helped create the moodiest and most well rounded album in the Can catalog. Unfortuantely, Damo Suzuki decided to leave the band follwing this album to become a Jehovah's Witness (WTF?). 'Future Days' might not be as legendary as 'Ege Bamyasi', or as daring as 'Tago Mago', but it is certainly is in no way inferior to those albums. 'Future Days' is the final statement from a constantly evolving and consistently original band that continues to add to its legacy through re-issued records like this....for the sake of future days.

This 1973 release was the last recording with vocalist Damo Suzuki and along with Tago Mago (1971), and Ege Bamyasi (1972) saw the band at their creative and artistic peak. The four pieces on Future Days flow along smoothly and range in length from the 3'02" Moonshake to the epic, 20'00" Bel Air. The particular type of Krautrock practiced by Can is perfected on Future Days and is characterized by atmospheric keyboard and guitar parts atop hypnotic, percussive grooves churned out by the rhythm section. In fact, it is the creative drumming of Jaki Liebezeit and the pulsating, nearly monotonic bass work of Holger Czukay that really makes Future Days breathe and swing so freely. Vocalist Damo Suzuki is virtually absent on this recording and his avant-garde vocal style, which included screaming and ranting on the previous two recordings, has unfortunately been reduced to barely audible, melodic lines only. All in all, Future Days is an excellent place to start exploring this great band.

This is just a brief review written for Amazonians who already know this album well. (Like me, you may rate this as one of the Top 100 rock discs of all time.)

I now possess two versions of this on CD -- this hybrid SACD and the earlier SPOON CDoo9 release of 1989. My brother also has the original LP. I have to admit that I am a little disappointed by the SACD, but that is largely because I have been so eagerly waiting for its release.

Although the SACD version is the clearest edition, it isn't that much clearer than the 1989 cut. 'Bel Air', for example, is still pretty murky. The SACD comes with informative inlay notes (and a good selection of photos), which remind the reader of the balmy 1972 summer in Cologne, the malfunctioning heating system in the Inner Space studio, the two-track recording equipment, and the enormous number of edits and treatments given to the music.

So there you have it. I assume this is the best version of the classic that it will ever be commercially viable to produce. (It would be nice to have 5.1 surround mix rather than the two-channel offering we have here.) My only complaint is with some of the bass; despite it being indistinct, I still got a headache from playing 'Bel Air' at volume. Happy Days!

Side 1 is perfect. The title track is Can at their best, and most sensitive and delicate, but in a sense we are treated to a slamming solid rhythm. (Jaki's drumming was never better than this LP). The mood is a dewey summer morning and the band plays (as usual) in service of the collective and the song. The remastering job adds strength to what was always a great album. "Spray" is a fantastic collection of whirling sounds, Can at their best. "Moonshake" is short and sweet.

Side 2 is, as the band have noted in interviews, problematic in that it is constructed in a somewhat pretentious way ("symphonic" is the word they use). But the sounds that have been arranged are rather amazing, Jaki's drumming sounding like helicopter blades, Michael and Irmin swirling through, and Holger dropping pieces of brilliance.

I love this record, I had the old CD and loved it and this reissue makes it at least ten times better.

Every time I go on a long-distance car ride this is one of the first things I listen to. Roll the windows down and just drive. But amazingly this album is good to sleep to as well.

It has so much of I want in a record: it is catchy and upbeat, but has soothing soft moments as well, the playing is tight and impressive, but has a loose improvisational feel, it is endlessly listenable but very experimental in the recording techniques and the approach to mixing... Buy it you will not regret it.

Beginning in the late Sixties and reaching in its greatest moments during the first half of the following decade, Germany produced some of the most daring and singular music Rock and Electronica saw in those days.

Groups like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Amon Duul, each in its own distinct manner did much more than imitating the great bands in the UK and the United States. Speaking of originality and adventurousness, CAN was even more important than the groups already mentioned, and possibly the best German band of all times.

Now, to choose a single album by CAN is literally impossible, yet "Future Days" should make anyone's short list. Along with its two predecessors, "Ege Bamyasi" and "Tago Mago," this album presents a band at the top of its ever-changing form.

By then, 1973, CAN had been together long enough to have an almost psychic musical connection with each other, and the continuous evolution of their sound reached its peak in Future Days.

Whether it is the sinuous bass lines Holger Czukay offers or the incomparable groove of drummer Jaki Leibezeit in the opener "Future Days" or Michael Karoli's guitar in "Spray" or the funky "Moonshake," this album is an amazing show of minimalism, the adventurous stripped to its essence, yet full of nuances and moods, further enhanced by Damo Suzuki's shamanic singing and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt's proto-Ambient cadences.

This is even more poignant in the final and longest song "Bel Air" which sums up everything that CAN gained its reputation on, and more than enough reason to deserve a more prominent place among the bands--anywhere!--that shaped contemporary Rock and Electronica.

although this band was more known in the 70's, i recently discovered their music through a friend. this cd was reviewed as one of thier best and it is. great wandering sounds and meandering inprovisation. can predates what are now called jam bands, so if you like long experimental instrumentals this is a fabulous cd.

Rarely have better stream-of-consciousness psychedelic recordings stood the test of time like Can's intensely organic approach. Though they specialized in a sort of cosmic noodling, fusing together scarcely grouped elements with unconscious elegance, almost all apparent flux comes layered with knowing musical intuitions, breaking away from many counterparts who tried, and failed, harder.

It's a little strange to see the glowing reviews here for Future Days from people who apparently know Can quite well. For me, Can is the most creative and original band of the last 50 years, but Future Days is one of their weaker albums. That said, a weak album from Can is still very very good.

Of course, there is no accounting for taste - plenty of people think U2 is great - but comparing Future Days to the two preceeding albums (Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi) and the two subsequent (Soon over Babaluma and Landed) puts it into the proper perspective. Future Days is good but not great, at least by the lofty standards of the full discography.

Best song on the album: Moonshake, a light-hearted romp which is unfortunately only 3:02. The most ambitious piece, Bel Air at 20 minutes even, fails to hold up its end of the disk. Compared to the brilliant 18:32 of Halleluhwah on Tago Mago, Bel Air seems timid and unambitious. Like the other two songs (Future Days, 9:34 and Spray, 8:28) there isn't the spark of genius that sets Can apart from the other great bands of the era.

Future Days also lacks the brutal experiments which mar some of the greater albums. Songs such as Peking O and Aumgyn on Tago Mago, or Unfinished on Landed. Yet I prefer the genius albums despite the inclusion of those painful sonic assaults. Maybe the freedom and daring that creates such musical train wrecks are the same ingredients that produce the sublime beauty of Halleluhwah, Vitamin C, Dizzy Dizzy, Vernal Equinox and Red Hot Indians. Can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs, can't produce works of towering musical genius without making some howlers.

If you like your Can mellow, Future Days might be just the ticket. But if you want the full experience, with chills up and down the spine complete with satori, these aren't the droids you're looking for.

While Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi often get the critical accolades they deserve, the superb Future Days is still rather obscure. I would go so far as to say that Future Days rivals the earlier two albums quality-wise, but its brevity (only 4 tracks) makes the former two much better buys (for the Can initiate). If you already own Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi this should be the next acquisition--it will not disappoint.

This compositions presented here, especially "Moonshake" and the 20 minute "Bel Air", are completely self-assured and have an atmospheric, almost impressionistic quality. This was probably Can at its peak: Schmidt, Czukay, and Karoli, with the incredible Damo Suzuki. Can fans should have this, as should any devotees of Krautrock on the order of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra.

Future Days was Damo Suzuki's last recorded album as the vocalist for Can, and while there are great tracks which both precede and supersede his tenure, no one would doubt that it was with Suzuki, that Can produced its finest work, including the historic albums mentioned above.

This is a terrific album. Also a great cover; I can't help but think they had in mind Peter Behren's Art Nouveau graphic design for AEG.