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Uncut JULY 2017 - by Louis Pattison

CAN: THE SINGLES

Career-spanning collection from Krautrock giants, on CD and triple vinyl

Can are rightly remembered as one of the most formidable of all the German groups, their first five albums - from 1969's Monster Movie to 1973's Future Days - constituting an almost unbeatable run of experimentation and innovation. Yet viewed from another perspective - in this case, the singles collection - it is notable how their music veered between the sublime and the ridiculous. What begins with the blasted post-Velvets blues of Soul Desert, original vocalist Malcolm Mooney croaking like a parched preacher, concludes twenty-one tracks later with a jaunty take on the can-can and the bewildering Hoolah Hoolah, which finds Holger Czukay jauntily observing that "they don't wear pants in the hoolah-hoolah dance". Arguably Can would not be Can without these moments of levity, and while it remains undeniable they lost a certain magic around about 1974's Soon Over Babaluma, even their late period turns out gems such as the lolloping disco of I Want More. Included are a few rarities: Turtles Have Short Legs - hitherto only available on Cannibalism 2 - hooks Jaki Liebezeit's monstrous tom rumbles to a whimsical Damo Suzuki lyric, while Silent Night gives the Christmas carol a quirky tropical overhaul. Here is Can, warts and all.

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