Can - Live in Paris 1973 coming Feb 23

[Progatron]

https://canofficial.bandcamp.com/alb...-in-paris-1973

Looks like this one is finally coming out officially, and seems to be complete. Looking forward to it! 2LP or 2CD.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Yay! I feared this series dead.

[Munster]

At last. It has been more than a year since the Cuxhaven release. Amazon UK hasn't yet listed the CD or vinyl versions on its site but its digital release, which is only available from February 23, shows the track timings as: 36:27 minutes; 9:20; 16:35, 15:09 and 13:46. So some good workouts there.

[JAMOOL]

great news, I was just wondering a couple days ago if this series was dead. it's been a genuinely bizarre rollout, I wonder if there were just some big delays at the pressing plants or whatever

I've heard this show before, it's probably one of the more famous Can bootlegs, all I can say is it's really great. not to spoil things but there's a version of a track from Ege Bamyasi on here that absolutely kills. hope they clean the sound up some.

[polmico]

Good news!

[Hunchentootz]

Oh hell yeah. This one is an autobuy no doubt.

[calyx]

Apparently this is from the Olympia, Paris, on 25 November 1973. They'd played the same venue earlier in the year (May), but the setlist doesn't match the one on Bandcamp (which basically says they're not playing any specific tunes), and the promo blurb says it was one of Damo Suzuki's last gigs with the band, so late 1973 it is.

[arturs]

^^^ But the track times listed by Munster above fit perfectly with those from my Dimeadozen download, which is purportedly from May 25. So it is highly likely to be the same show. Maybe just the May date is wrong?

I'm buying it either way, but I'm not optimistic that we're getting a previously unheard show.

[Munster]

This writer also seems sure it is the May show but he could just be making assumptions. Labelling each track with a number rather than a song title seems to be the pattern in this series of live recordings.

https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2024/01/...in-paris-1973/

[Dave (in MA)]

The first entries in the series were from '75 or '76, and were recorded by a fan ("archivist Andy Hall") who sneaked a recorder "in his pants", according to the press releases for #1. Then there was a pause in the release schedule...

Does the '73 date for the Paris suggest a different provenance?
Somehow I've managed to add all of these to my triple-digit BC Wishlist without pulling the trigger.

[per anporth]

Well. We're none the wiser about the provenance of this recording from the liner notes (which actually make a virtue of the lack of info - about the only "virtue" one might otherwise discern in them), other than that the recording is of the Paris Olympia gig of 12th May, 1973.

Need I add that this is magnificent? Very good sound quality, & a magical performance.

[Munster]

Just listened to 'Live in Paris 1973' and it is great, the best of the Live series so far. The sound level is consistent throughout, not ‘live-in-the-studio’ clear but all the instruments come through well. It reminds me of the days when I listened to most new music on shortwave radio; a slightly murky sound but magical nonetheless (and here the sense of mystery is helped along by the chanting of Damo Suzuki, who is often a bit back in the mix). The bass is too loud, a problem I have found with all the other live releases, but 'Paris 1973' has more variety when compared with the other three in the series, with clearly defined songs such as the excellent Spoon and Vitamin C. The ending is abrupt; presumably the C90 tape ran out then (although I suspect multiple sources were used for the album). Recommended.

[per anporth]

I'm pretty much in agreement with you, Munster - but maybe even more impressed by it than you! I'm not a total Canhead, but I think this recording (especially when listened to alongside the [very good] first release in the series) shows just how much Damo brought to their performances, how much more "inventive" they were as a live proposition during this period when he was with them. I think this goes beyond "just" more variety, though perhaps we're making more or less the same point, but with different words. I certainly concur with your judgements on the performances of the two tracks you mention from Ege Bam Yasi, both of which are superb.

(btw - I also think you're right about the multiple sources - my first impression listening for the first time is that the audience responses after each number had been patched in)

[Munster]

^^ A good review from the FT (copied here as they have a paywall), echoing your view of Suzuki:

Can: Live in Paris 1973 album review — vivid tribute to one of rock’s best improvisational groups

Bootleg recordings find the German band stretching out across mesmerising long jams

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney February 21

The latest in a series of live albums by the German band Can has been foreshadowed by the death of their totemic singer Damo Suzuki. He died earlier this month aged 74. Disdainful of nostalgia, he wouldn’t have cared for this archival release. But it makes for a vivid tribute to his role in one of the best improvisational groups in rock’s history.

Live in Paris 1973 documents Can at the height of their powers. The wind was in their sails following their 1971 breakthrough album, Tago Mago, and its successor, 1972’s Ege Bamyasi. Suzuki sang on both. He had been recruited to the band after being encountered busking outside a Munich café, doing eccentric vocal improvisations for the entertainment or bemusement of passers-by. His liberated approach to singing chimed with Can’s desire to stretch the format of the song as far as possible.

The album originates from bootleg recordings of a show at L’Olympia in Paris, re-engineered for official release. The audio quality is decent. Suzuki’s voice bleeds into the sounds of the instrumentation, but that fits with Can’s ethos. Formed by musicians with backgrounds in jazz and the avant-garde, they treated vocals and instruments as equal elements of a whole. Sung words were part of the musical texture, like scatting, not the central text around which all else was subordinate.

Songs from Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi are spun into long jams over the course of the album’s 91 minutes. What might have been stoned hippy noodling in lesser hands is mesmerising. Michael Karoli’s trippy guitar-playing is insistent and needling. On keyboards, Irmin Schmidt pounds out contrapuntal rhythms and catchy vamps. Holger Czukay’s basslines and Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming are gripping.

Suzuki often resembles an instrumentalist himself, wailing with the guitar or barking chopped-up phrases in time to the rhythms. Lyrics are chanted until they lose meaning. He and his bandmates lock into a groove and build towards the heightened frenzies that they called “Godzillas”. The recording ends with jarring suddenness as they wind down from one such peak, as though intuiting the singer’s abrupt departure from the group.

A few months after this gig, following the release of the album Future Days, he walked out on his bandmates. Suzuki was too free-spirited for the constraints of life in a band, even one as expansive as Can. He didn’t like to look back. But Live in Paris 1973 allows us to do so, with gratitude.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

A definite winner. The balance is a bit off but for an audience tape from 1973 it is quite good indeed. I do wish the end was present, but other than that I really have no complaints about this album.

[Munster]

It’s a bit like the bus. You wait a year for one to arrive and then three come in short order. Apparently there are two more live Can releases planned for this year, both recorded in the UK in March 1977 (two days apart). The first, due for release in May, is from Aston University and the second, due in August, was recorded at Keele University. This is information gleaned from one online seller only but it seems legit. Rosko Gee is on bass for both and Holger Czukay is on ‘radio’.

[per anporth]

It's a bus I will have jumped off before now...

(what's your take on this era of Can, Munster? - how does it stack in comparison to earlier iterations?)

[Munster]

It's a bus I will have jumped off before now...

I must admit that the post-Soon Over Babaluma period is my least favourite of the various Can iterations and I very rarely play any of their studio albums from that time (except for the thunderous Smoke E.F.S. No. 59 from Flow Motion). As for these new recordings, the Live in Paris 1973 release is going to be a hard act to follow. But, on the plus side, the 1977 band had Holger Czukay on short wave radio and general electronics and that sounds promising. There is good footage of this band playing on the Can DVD, and on the Can Live CD there are two tracks from the March 1977 tour from which the next two live albums are drawn. Czukay’s radio meanderings can be heard faintly on both these songs (Fizz from Keele University) and Cascade Waltz (from London’s Sound Circus). Fizz has an eastern flavour to it and the radio meanderings sound reminiscent of the Iranian vocals Czukay used to great effect on the song Persian Love. If his input can be brought to the fore on the new live recordings then that would be great. But experience suggests nothing can be taken for granted in this series of live recordings, so we will have to wait and see. Both albums will be automatic purchases, of course.

[per anporth]

Hmmm. Ok - I may hang in there. Low expectations mean a higher possibility of being pleasantly surprised!

[Hobo Chang Ba]

It’s a bit like the bus. You wait a year for one to arrive and then three come in short order. Apparently there are two more live Can releases planned for this year, both recorded in the UK in March 1977 (two days apart). The first, due for release in May, is from Aston University and the second, due in August, was recorded at Keele University. This is information gleaned from one online seller only but it seems legit. Rosko Gee is on bass for both and Holger Czukay is on ‘radio’.

Interesting! I will listen first, but unless its truly an assbomb, I will purchase as well.

[JAMOOL]

if Fizz gets an official release it should be an autobuy. really groovy stuff, still says true to the spirit of Can I feel (in a way the studio stuff maybe doesn't), also sounds amazing

dunno about that second show though. one thing about these boots is as good as Stuttgart and Brighton are, don't you really only need one or the other? very similar setlist, even if they do sometimes go in different directions.

[per anporth]

It’s a bit like the bus. You wait a year for one to arrive and then three come in short order. Apparently there are two more live Can releases planned for this year, both recorded in the UK in March 1977 (two days apart). The first, due for release in May, is from Aston University and the second, due in August, was recorded at Keele University. This is information gleaned from one online seller only but it seems legit. Rosko Gee is on bass for both and Holger Czukay is on ‘radio’.

[Munster]

^^^ Thanks for the head's up. Just this morning I was wondering if I had spread disinformation about further Can releases this year!

The sample sounds rather good. Bass-heavy as usual but most reviews I have read of the other releases in the series seem to like the loud bass. Another autobuy I think.

[JAMOOL]

it looks to be another single LP release like Cuxhaven. the existing boot is about twice as long. though this sounds like a different source so who knows, maybe the second half wasn't useable.

if Keele is the Fizz radio show then that one should be the autobuy. it'll be similar to this one but longer (hopefully!) though I wonder if they're gonna use the same bootlegger or just use the source that was used for radio, since that sounds better than any Can bootleg I've heard.