Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Mojo JANUARY 2005 - by Holger Czukay

THE BEST THING I'VE HEARD ALL YEAR

Holger Czukay: Can man recommends Can albums shock!

I tell you what I got. First, Brian Eno, Drawn From Life [from 2001]. This blend of criminal tension and white emptiness is what I really like about him. This CD has a piece where I was performing with Brian Eno. We made a concert here in Bonn in a museum and he took something recorded on dictaphone.

Second thing would be Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research Inc [2000]. This you can say is the start of electronic music. This and Stockhausen. And yet Scott could not be more unlike Stockhausen. So we have here, for example, Don't Beat Your Wife Every Night! Wonderful title, eh? You must have this album! They are like short, electronic themes to adverts, like short plays without words, and all this in the '50s!

The next album is Stockhausen, Elektronische Musik mit Tonszenen vom Freitag aus Licht. [Stockhausen-Verlag]. This reminds me somehow of Can's Aumgn from Tago Mago, the one with the generator that I am tuning up and down as Irmin [Schmidt] sings, creating a white and floating ambience. It is a kind of fantasy world. And this is what Stockhausen also did on this one here. Especially disc two is a hit.

The last one is David Sylvian, Everything And Nothing, a double retrospective album. What I love about David is his contradictional sense of approaching music. For instance, there's a song called Let The Happiness In, but when you hear the dark harmonies you think this is your last moment in hell. It is a special thing.

The last is the remastered four Can CDs. I haven't listened to them for years. Now I listen to them again and I am exploring a whole new world! It isn't even that bad what we have done!