Bleep

In comparison to preceding work, Can’s fourth album is perhaps their most accessible and a swift representation of the critical acclaim laid down at their door. Ege Bamyasi runs like a greatest hits in miniature, containing the pure wildness of their unrestrained band synergy, and some of their most played, just about radio friendly hits. Without a doubt, one of the greatest albums to sweep through public consciousness, Ege Bamyasi is an eclectic take on psychedelic rock that nonetheless remains effortless to engage with and cohesive throughout.

Perhaps ironic, then, that an album cited as Can’s most “focussed” was probably the most haphazard to make. The success of single ‘Spoon’ generated a strict deadline for new material, resulting in an album half culled from preceding singles, half finished at last minute, yet all regarded as some of their finest work. Tracks such as ‘Spoon’ and ‘Vitamin C’ represent a more elaborate exploration of the band’s more approachable side, pure mystical masterpieces with ballistic shuffles and burning guitar riffs showing off the suaveness of krautrock.

Then ‘Soup’, a jam session held to fill a gap on the record, produces some of Ege Bamyasi’s fieriest moments. From passioned vocals and squealing shreds to brothy amorphous bass plucks and keyboard glitches, ‘Soup’ accelerates into a car crash of demolishing drums and searing shrapnel electronics. Damo Suzuki speaks in tongues and the band lashes out in response; in fact, all over the record he drifts between indecipherable and vaguely pop lyricism, his unpredictable stream of consciousness in harmony with the prolonged action montages of tracks like ‘Pinch’. Immediately propulsive, it splashes rhythm and melody through trilling drum patterns and whirlpools of gnarled guitars, and the odd slide whistle in a musical menagerie.

Ege Bamyasi is smooth and groovy, yet blazing and chaotic. Even when it whispers, Can throw in a quiet scream, adding heaps of colour to a classic album.