In mid-February 1973, the German group Can, created in Cologne at the beginning of 1968, arrived in England to begin a tour which would then take them to France and Germany. Pause at the end of spring, resume in the fall, almost until the end of the year. The group is among the most active in the fertile German scene that appeared at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s (Amon Düül II, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster, Agitation Free, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Guru Guru, Wallenstein, Faust…). During concerts, although references to studio recordings remain, Can’s approach is that of experimentation, of the emergence of moments born from collective improvisation. This is evidenced, in addition to pirate publications, by some official archives.
After extracts from various concerts in Live 1971-1977 (1999), followed records about a single event, respectively Live in Stuttgart 1975 (2021), Live in Brighton 1975 (2021) et Live in Cuxhaven 1976 (2022). And here, in this series called “Can Live”, Live in Paris 1973. Not the concert recorded and filmed on March 22 at the Bataclan, excerpts of which were broadcast a few weeks later on television during the program “Pop 2”, but that of May 12, in the most prestigious of Parisian venues at the time. , the Olympia. An archive that has been circulating on the parallel circuit for around twenty years, with an already decent sound and which has benefited from an improvement here.
On keyboards, Irmin Schmidt, on guitar, Michael Karoli (1948-2001), on bass, Holger Czukay (1938-2017), on drums, Jaki Liebezeit (1938-2017). And on vocals Damo Suzuki, who joined the four instrumentalists in May 1970, in Munich. The marketing, this Friday, February 23, of this Live in Paris 1973, planned for a while, takes place a fortnight after Suzuki’s death, announced on February 9. Born in early 1950, in Kobe, he was 74 years old. Having left Japan at 18, he began a life as a nomadic musician in Europe – a few chords on the guitar to accompany his singing. When he joined Can, without knowing the universe, it was to replace at short notice the American singer Malcolm Mooney, who suffered from psychological problems and had left the group in the lurch.
Longue improvisation
With a soft voice, Suzuki most often sings in English, sometimes slips words into Japanese, transforms the repetition of the same phrase into onomatopoeia. And suddenly, the melodic curves of these kinds of nursery rhymes are transformed by the cry, a breathless delivery. In the relationship between Suzuki and his instrumentalist companions there are musical question-and-answer games, tracks where both surprise each other.
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