Electronic Sound Issue 77

PDF | 13 May 2021 | 40.1MB

We’re heading for the dark side of the krautrock kaleidoscope with this month’s Electronic Sound cover stars, the inimitable Can. We’ve a limited edition purple vinyl seven-inch featuring an excerpt from the band’s stunning new live album to accompany the magazine too. Prompted by the release of ‘Live In Stuttgart 1975’, the first in a series of archive Can gig recordings, we speak to Irmin Schmidt about the band he created with Michael Karoli, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit towards the end of the 1960s. As we try to deconstruct their wholly unique brand of sonic voodoo, Schmidt reveals the inner workings of Can, together with his own memories of their powerful live performances. “We were constantly inventing collectively,” he says. “We came onstage and we didn’t have a plan. We just started. What we did was always a reaction to the whole environment – to the sound, to the acoustics, to the crowd, to our mood, and to the moment.”