Customer Reviews

Future Days (Reis)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album stands as the final and, in my opinion, greatest installment in the holy trinity of Can's Damo Suzuki albums. It's not that Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago don't have moments of absolute transcendence. But neither of the two records can match the consistency of Future Days. The album is, in a word, perfect. Four tracks, and not a wasted instant. The mood of the record is considerably more hushed than either of its predecessors, with Irmin Schmidts gentle keyboard textures occupying more of a foregrounded presence. Yet the restrained sonic atmosphere only facilitates one's admiration for the band's tremendous talents, as each instrumentalist's contributions become all the more crucial and apparent. Suzuki's vocals are never more successful and melodically compelling than on this album, and, most of all, Jaki Leibezeit turns in one of the most subtle and commanding drum performances in the history of recorded music. I'd recommend this album to fans of Miles Davis' electric period (especially In a Silent Way, whose presence looms large throughout Future Days), as well as to fans of bands like Radiohead, Tortoise, and Stereolab who are curious about the aesthetic roots of contemporary experimental rock.

Nothing Can ever does after this is essential, or in my opinion even good. But what they left behind, oh what a record. What a record. I won't talk much about the other tracks, if you don't know this record you have been sadly left out on some of the most beautiful music ever made, so I'll leave you some suprises for that first virgin listen. But I can't leave the keyboard without putting over "Bel Air" which at nearly 20 minutes in lenghth is everything Can was ever about at it's absolute finest. Damo never sounded so good, more soul in that japanese kid then Ray Charles, Jaki plays drums like the tribes who worship King Kong as a God in "godzilla vs King kong" while channeling Chopin and letting him show how he would have played drums, Karoli sounds like everything Robin Guthrie ever wanted to sound like, mixed with some Funk Brothers strumming, really his most sensitive playing, but also this MAD riff through a tape echo later that made Manuel Gottsching irrelevant (sad but true, Ashra never sounded this good my friends), Schmitt just blows everyone ever away with his organ playing here, his finest moment ever, and Holger, ah Holger plays one of the finest bass lines of all time, he just don't let up and starts strumming that Mustang bass and bending it almost out of tune but not quite. I've never heard anyone else play bass like this in my life. You can't make it through life without this record and call yourself "whole". Nothing else compares to this, it never grows old, never falters, never fails to amaze me even after all these years. One of my most treasured possesions.

What a beautiful album. Of all Can albums, this is THE one to mellow out with. Often described as ambient( a couple of years before Brian Eno coined the phrase) FUTURE DAYS is a trip into territory other groups like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk would soon be traversing. On the surface there doesn't seem to be much happening. For this reason, headphones are essential gear for hearing the cosmic tension just below the album's deceptively smooth surface. The title track is like a soundtrack to a movie that plays out in your head. On "Spray" the band, including vocalist Damo Suzuki, seem to be freely improvising with future jazz ambience. It is simply impossible to know where the next note is coming from, even on repeat listenings. "Moonshake" shakes things up with it's quirky dance rythms, so unplug the headphones and hit the dancefloor. This is the one song on the album that you can play at a party and people will think it's a modern dance track. Why it hasn't been used in more movies and commercials is beyond me, because it has the power to cojure up so many visual ideas. "Bel Air" is pure bliss. It takes off as a meditation, tripping through it's own psychedellic innerspace before crashing and burning twenty minutes later. In a word: a trip. As for the album, a classic for future days and beyond.

really. what are you waiting for? This is probably the best Can record out there. The interaction between each musician is extrodanary. Unlike previous releases (tago mago and ege bamyasi) Future Days is a completly smooth listen all the way through. (dont get me wrong, i love those other records as well) It still has it's tense moments i.e. Splash, but Future Days finds Can in an easier groove that brings you on a fantastic journey through highs, lows, darkness and light. truely... a masterpiece.
note: these cd re-issues sound no where near as good as the vinyl. i kid you not. however, future days is a difficult one to find on lp, so buy it anyway.

How can this one have been ignored when Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi have such gushing praise lavished upon them!? I've owned a copy of this album continuously for about 30 years, and although my love of the other early Can works comes and goes, this one remains a cool, refreshing breeze every time I hear it. It powerfully evokes warm summer days, and has such an easy feel to it that it really does take the listener somewhere else.

The title-track is just wonderful. That rhythm has to be one of the quintessential Can grooves - easy yet insistent, with Jaki's drumming rock-solid, and Holger providing his trademark harmonics on the bass. Damo's vocals are easier, less frantic than on their previous recordings. Just 11 minutes of bliss. This is followed by "Spray" - more akin to the wonderfully chaotic experimentation of their earlier works, but still completely in place on this album. "Moonshake", put simply, is one of the most iconic and memorable riffs that Can ever laid down, and just seeps into every corner of the mounting feeling of well-being engendered by this wonderful record. Check out the wonderful live rendition of this achingly lovely groove (with Rosko Gee's fabulous bass-playing) on the Can DVD. "Bel Air" is a 20-minute long groove in three distinct movements, but never loses its momentum, and remains among Can's finest moments.

The cover is really naff. The music contained within is sublime. This was the last album to which Damo Suzuki contributed. Such a shame, because if they'd continued improving at the same rate they did during his stay with the band, there's no telling where they may have taken us subsequently!

When I first heard Talking Heads "Fear of Music" nearly 30(!) years ago, it was a new and strange experience. Keep in mind it was released during a time when what emanated from the radio was what would later become known as "classic rock". "Fear of Music" and "Remain in Light" are widely, and rightfully credited as paving the way for mixing found sounds, polyrhythms, and later, sampling and loops to create rock, pop, and even hip hop music.

At the time, I had no idea who CAN were, or that CAN had paved the way for Talking Heads, early Roxy Music, and even mid period Rolling Stones, just to name a few of the big ones.

Before these bands used CAN as their blueprint, CAN had taken the Velvet Underground's sound along with Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Beatles' "Revolution #9", and added in polyrhythms, backward tape loops, etc. to come up with their unique sound that was decades ahead of their time.

Years before the Stones released "Black and Blue" and "Some Girls", on "Ege Bamyasi", vocalist Malcolm Suzuki sounds nothing so much as an unhinged Mick Jagger. The non lead singer "speak sing" vocalization that David Byrne would later adopt is evident throughout. Another characteristic that's especially evident in Talking Heads, is the riffing by each band member off each other. Not just the drums, but every instrument....guitars, bass, vocals, is used percussively to create evolving, angular jams. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether bird and insect sounds are actually guitar or synthsizer effects.

Some of the material from "Future Days" wouldn't be out of place during the Space/Drums part of Grateful Dead's live shows.

I was amused in reading the liner notes to the reissued "Future Days". Legend has it the ventilation system at CAN's "Inner Space" (if that name doesn't tell you what was really going on, then read on) studio was malfunctioning during the recording sessions, causing the band members to inhale some type of fumes that affected the sound.

One can choose to believe the legend. As far as I'm concerned, suffice it to say that the title of one of CAN's songs, "Mushroom" wasn't coincidental or random.

As with other labels and genres, lumping CAN with "Krautrock" is utterly useless, misleading, and confusing. To say CAN were the grandfathers of jam bands and intellectual rock would be much more descriptive.

"Ege", "Tago Mago" and "Future Days" are absolutely essential listening if you want to complete the jigsaw puzzle of the greatest music of the 20th century.

This is easily the best thing this influential German art-rock outfit ever did. It's just such a shame that singer Damo Suzuki left the band and this direction was never really pursued again. Future Days follows an ambient yet involving path that isn't even broken up by the funky "Moonshake." "Bel Air" is the obvious masterpiece, but the title track and "Spray" are great as well. The former sets up a vaguely latin beat with Suzuki's drowsy, unintelligible yet catchy vocal line fitting in perfectly. "Spray" sets up a minor-key jazzy vibe while Suzuki mumbles things like "It's dark out when it rains..." over a descending guitar figure.

This whole CD makes me think of warm summery evenings. There's nothing in the lyrics to suggest this, and not much in the music, but it's just the perfect summer album. It's also the kind of CD you play all the way through in one sitting. Sometimes I get so caught up in the vibe I play it again right after. It's that good.

Fans of standard symphonic Prog who've heard about Can would do best to start here if you're interested. Then get Ege Bamyasi.

Fans of Krautrock and ambient should already have this, and if you don't you should.

Adventurous sorts looking for some atmospheric, summer evening music will like this too.

Honestly, words cannot do this record justice. If you are unfamiliar with Can, get this. If you are familiar with Can and dont have this, get this. I dont think of what Can did as just a band playing music. Can asends the "secret stair" that St. John of the Cross wrote of. Jazz, rock and roll, blues, trance, ambient are genres that have become liquid in the expression of this record. True mystics cannot make words to describe their "illumination", they just live. This record is alive and breathes in the joy and madness of all the cosmos, and exhales pure light. RIP Michael Karoli

There was a time in the 1970s when Can would have had some justification in calling themselves the world's greatest rock band. This album is much their most accessible, and for many of us, it is their masterpiece. From Irmin Schmidt's layered keyboard textures and Jaki Liebezeit's metronomic drumming to Michael Karoli's guitar weaving in and out of the mix, this is a great ensemble achievement.

Although the three-minute 'Moonshake' is the obvious single on the album, a sample listening to the opening track, 'Future Days', is the best piece on which to judge whether you'll enjoy the whole album. After repeated playing, you may decide that the epic 'Bel Air', which took up all of side two of the original LP, is the outstanding track on the album. Recorded in the balmy summer of 1973, this track wonderfully captures the hazy, lazy feeling of driving through the countryside. After one of several fade-outs, Schmidt introduces a rural soundscape of birdsounds and farm animals, and then gradually reintroduces the rock rhythms. It's understated, but it's one of the great moments in rock, rather akin to the sound of the Cambridge meadows that Pink Floyd captured on 'Ummagumma'.

Who influenced who is a difficult question, as Roxy Music's 'For Your Pleasure' was made at much the same time. Certainly this Can album sounds a lot more like Eno or Fripp than 1971's 'Tago Mago'. 1973 was a fantastic year for european rock, with Magma also in the studios recording their classic 'Mekanik Destructiw Kommandoh'.

Even if you only have 20 CDs in your collection, this ought to be one of them. Just as one of the other reviewers has said, this CD goes with me whenever I travel.

The first, title track starts out so slowly and quietly, peaceful and happy. Unlike many tracks on their other albums, this one does not have that frenetic feel. It is relaxed. The rhythm is lilting, like a spring morning. Not driving and hard as is the case in the opening tracks on both _Tago Mago_ and _Ege Bamyasi_ (the other two albums on which Damo Suzuki makes an appearance). If this is what the future days have in store, maybe the world isn't as bleek as it sometimes appears. Damo Suzuki's vocals seem to play hide and seek within the other instruments, sometimes slightly louder, sometimes hiding beneath, never overbearing or taking the lead. This sort of music is democratic, each member having an equal say in the direction the music goes (much the same sound that Sonic Youth attains on many of their tracks).

The next track, "Spray", starts up w/ a more frenetic rhythm and beat. More driving. The sun is up, the day is grinding along. This track is remniscient of some of their earlier releases (though not quite), changing rhythm and tempo about half way through. The second half loses that frantic drum and bass and becomes more ambient, almost ethereal.

Track three, "Moonshake", is just that. I can't help but shake my moon when I hear this song. It is so up beat and danceable. Uncommon for Can, but definitely not unwelcome. It is also lilting, but in a more sing-song sort of way. It almost (almost, but not quite!) has a pop quality to it.

"Bel Air", the last track, is 20:00, a couple of minutes longer than the longest tracks on _Tago Mago_, but somehow it manages to not sound quite as epic. It is divided into four distinct movements (not three). The first, like the first track, is missing that really hard, driving drum/percussion section that Jaki Liebezeit delivers on "Halleluwah" and "Aumgn" (_Tago Mago_) and elsewhere in this track, although it is definitely persistant and accurate to the point of being incredible. The second movement is faster, more frenetic, hard working, rhythmic and fast. This movement ends slowly, fading out into the sounds of birds and insects which emerge from the rhythm. Somewhere in there you can hear the voice of a man, although he is unintelligible. Utterly strange and beautiful (you can definitely hear the same sounds that the Orb goes for here). The third movement begins as slowly as the second ended, also emerging from the sounds of birds and bugs and man, but this one has that happy, lilting rhythm and melody again. This doesn't last though, and the music seems to go on a decline, spiraling downward. You can hear Holger Czukay's bass go from sounding chirrupy, almost guitar-like, where he is playing high up on the neck, to downright ominous as he moves out the neck into the lower notes, bringing with him the rest of the band and they seem to be spiralling downward, faster and faster, careening out of control. It sounds like the end of the world. The rhythm and melody eventually give way to chaos and pandemonium until the movement ends w/ a single note from Irmin Schmidt's keyboard and something that sounds like the wind over a desert. Did we just witness The Apocalypse? The fourth movement is short and sweet. Not as happy sounding as the first, or the way that the third one begins, but it is definitely hopeful. Even though the world just ended there is still tomorrow. There is still _Future Days_.