| Flow Motion | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 3 October 1976 | |||
| Recorded | June 1976 | |||
| Studio | Inner Space Studio, Weilerswist, near Cologne | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 37:37 | |||
| Label | Harvest, Virgin, Spoon, Mute | |||
| Producer | Can | |||
| Can chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [2] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [3] |
Flow Motion is the seventh studio album by German rock band Can. It was released in October 1976 and features the UK hit single "I Want More".
Recording sessions for what would become Flow Motion began at Can's Inner Space Studio in Cologne in the spring of 1976. Since their previous album Landed , the band had been recording on a state-of-the-art 16-track machine, which had changed the dynamics of the group and the way they recorded. Instead of playing everything live together, different members could now record their parts separately. Bryan Bierman of Magnet Magazine highlighted the recording process, along with their embrace of rhythms (especially disco rhythms), as leading factors in the lowered appraisal of rock music fans and critics at the album's release. [4]
Flow Motion was mixed using "Artificial Head" binaural stereo. [5] All lyrics were written by Peter Gilmour, the band's live sound engineer. Irmin and Michael cherry-picked the parts they liked the most and performed them. Michael prefered simple texts that he could sing and wanted the words to be rhythmic. [6]
The cover features a photograph taken by band member Michael Karoli.
Throughout their career, Can had experimented with a number of different sounds. With Flow Motion, the band became cleaner, more playful, and laid-back, adding disco and reggae to the list. [7] Apart from the new rhythms, the influence of recording with 16 tracks meant there are multiple guitar lines from Michael Karoli, and Irmin Schmidt's keyboards also come to the fore, giving Flow Motion much more shimmering atmosphere.
A disco vibe dominates the opening track "I Want More"—short, catchy, and danceable. The song was released as a single and became a hit, reaching number 26 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1976. [8] The band even appeared on Top of the Pops to perform the song. [9]
"Laugh Till You Cry, Live Till You Die (O.R.N.)" became Can's debut effort in the style of reggae. Michael, who also devised the text, has been inspired by Jamaican music introduced to him by Brian Eno, during Eno's time in Germany. Reggae infuses most of the rest of the album, although Can experiments with rhythm and instrumentation, rather than playing it straight. This is exemplified on "Cascade Waltz", which combines a reggae beat with a waltz, and on "Laugh Till You Cry - Live Till You Die (O.R.N.)", which features guitarist Karoli playing the Turkic bağlama. [6]
After the reprise of the opening track "...And More", which finishes side one of the original vinyl album, side two opens with "Babylonian Pearl", which is evocative of "Come Sta, La Luna" on Soon Over Babaluma . The song's vocals are handled by Irmin Schmidt, [6] and speak about a girl who "comes from a land where woman is man".
The next song, the gloomy-sounding "Smoke (E.F.S. No. 59)", is a "filmic fog of rumbling, ominous drums, saturated with metallic clangs and distant war bugles. It connects the dots between African log rhythms and the approaching metallic tattoos of industrialists like Test Dept, with a nod to the phase music of Steve Reich". The titular track, "Flow Motion", closes the album with another reggae-based tune. "Jaki halves the speed of his "I Want More" riff, and Michael overdubs several layers of guitars, a taut upbeat in the manner of Jamaica's legions of dub sessioneers, and solarised, feedbacking flareups in the right ear. Half submerged in the mix, he [Michael] mutters about teeth and ears grinding to the roots, and repeats the title. Holger's sliding fingers never deviate from his two-note perimeter." [10]
The more accessible nature of Flow Motion, and its flirtation with disco, meant this album was not well received at the time of its release. Many took affront to seeing the band playing disco, lip-synching and dancing to Top of the Pops, especially as rock fans generally hated disco in the 1970s. [11] Vivien Goldman of Sounds Magazine, on the other hand, praised the album's "android/mechanoid pulsebeat" and added that "It's fun to listen with creative insanity to this fine example of a mature, imaginative descendant of classical rock. And see what happens … The ideal way to appreciate Can is to go limp and flow with the motion." [12] [13]
A few months after the release of Flow Motion, Holger Czukay told an interviewer that "there is one common thing which everybody appreciated from the very first moment and that is the reggae influence. For me, when it comes to reggae music, I really can get crazy!" [6]
Flow Motion, however, has subsequently been re-assessed, with Magnet Magazine labelling it a "hidden gem" in 2012. [14]
According to Rob Young, the author of Can's biography, the band's hit single "I Want More" proved that Can's tape-based methodology has been slowly integrating into the popular music, and "in the realm of disco and dub reggae, the idea of a long-form, repetitive beat, constructed from tape loops or drum machines, was fast becoming standard practice". [15]
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Want More" | Peter Gilmour | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 3:29 |
| 2. | "Cascade Waltz" | Peter Gilmour | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 5:35 |
| 3. | "Laugh Till You Cry - Live Till You Die (O.R.N.)" | Peter Gilmour, Michael Karoli | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 6:43 |
| 4. | "...And More" | Peter Gilmour | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 2:43 |
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5. | "Babylonian Pearl" | Peter Gilmour | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 3:29 |
| 6. | "Smoke (E.F.S. No. 59)" | none | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 5:15 |
| 7. | "Flow Motion" | none | Czukay, Karoli, Liebezeit, Schmidt | 10:23 |
Produced by Can. "Cascade Waltz" was produced by Can and Simon Puxley.
The album was recorded at Inner Space Studio, Weilerswist, near Cologne by Holger Czukay and René Tinner and was mixed by Manfred Schunke at Delta Acoustic Studio, Wilster, Germany.
Can were a German experimental rock band formed in Cologne in 1968 by Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar), and Jaki Liebezeit (drums). They featured several vocalists, including the American Malcolm Mooney (1968–70) and the Japanese Damo Suzuki (1970–73). They have been hailed as pioneers of the German krautrock scene.
Holger Schüring, known professionally as Holger Czukay, was a German musician best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap between pop and the avant-garde", Czukay was also notable for having created early important examples of ambient music, for having explored "world music" well before the term was coined, and for having been a pioneer of sampling.
Jaki Liebezeit was a German drummer, best known as a founding member of experimental rock band Can. He was called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral".
Michael Karoli was a German guitarist, violinist and composer. He was a founding member of the influential krautrock band Can.
Monster Movie is the debut studio album by German rock band Can, released in August 1969 by Music Factory and Liberty Records.
Tago Mago is the second studio album by the German krautrock band Can, originally released as a double LP in August 1971 on United Artists Records. It was the band's first full studio album to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki after the departure of Malcolm Mooney the year prior, though Suzuki had been featured on most tracks on the 1970 compilation album Soundtracks. Recorded at Schloss Nörvenich, a medieval castle near Cologne, the album features long-form experimental tracks blending rock and jazz improvisation, funk rhythms, and musique concrète tape editing techniques.
Ege Bamyası is the third studio album by German krautrock band Can, released on 29 November 1972 by United Artists Records. The album contains the single "Spoon", which charted in the Top 10 in Germany after being used as the theme song to the German television mini-series Das Messer. The success of the single allowed Can to establish their own studio, Inner Space, in Weilerswist, North Rhine-Westphalia, where they recorded the rest of the album.
Landed is the sixth studio album by the German krautrock band Can.
Out of Reach is the ninth studio album by the German krautrock band Can, released as an LP in 1978 on Harvest Records. It is their tenth official studio album, discounting compilations such as Unlimited Edition.
Rite Time is the eleventh and final studio album by the German krautrock band Can, released in later Summer 1989 by Mercury Records. The album features the vocals of the band's original singer, Malcolm Mooney, who had left the group in 1970 after their debut album Monster Movie. Upon the album's initial release, "In the Distance Lies the Future" only appeared on the CD version, but it was included on the 2014 vinyl reissue.
Delay 1968 is a compilation album by the German experimental rock band Can released in 1981. It comprises previously unreleased work recorded for Can's rejected debut album, Prepared to Meet Thy Pnoom, recorded with the singer Malcolm Mooney.
"Spoon" is a song by krautrock group Can, recorded in 1971. It was originally released as a single with the song "Shikako Maru Ten" on the B-side. "Spoon" also appeared as the final track to the band's album Ege Bamyasi later that year.
"Mushroom" is a song by the German krautrock band Can, from their 1971 album Tago Mago. It's the shortest song on the album, lasting for 4 minutes and 8 seconds. A video was made for the track which has been shown on MTV.
Spoon Records is an independent record label founded and managed by the spouse of keyboard player Irmin Schmidt, Hildegard Schmidt, since 1979. The label, and its sister publishing operation Messer Music, are headquartered in the Luberon district of France, mostly releasing and reissuing music made by the krautrock band Can and its members. Hildegard and Irmin Schmidt's daughter Sandra Podmore has been directors of Spoon Records since 2008.
Can Live Music is a double live album by the band Can, released in 1999 and recorded in the UK and West Germany between 1972 and 1977. It was originally included in the now out-of-print Can box set, Can Box.
Unlimited Edition is a compilation album by the band Can. Released in 1976 as a double album, it was an expanded version of the 1974 LP Limited Edition on United Artists Records which, as the name suggests, was a limited release of 15,000 copies. The album collects unreleased music across the band's history, from 1968 to 1975, and both of the band's major singers are featured. The cover photos were taken among the Elgin Marbles in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.
The Lost Tapes is a compilation album of studio outtakes and live recordings by the German experimental rock band Can, which was originally released as an LP in 2012 by Spoon Records in conjunction with Mute Records. The compilation was curated by Irmin Schmidt and Daniel Miller, compiled by Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore, and edited by Jono Podmore.
Kamasutra: Vollendung der Liebe is the soundtrack to the West German documentary film of the same name (1969), written by Innerspace Productions, an early name for the krautrock band Can, and officially released in 2009 by "Crippled Dick Hot Wax!". Initially, the film's producers commissioned only Irmin Schmidt to work on the soundtrack, finished with the contribution from Innerspace Productions.
Agilok & Blubbo is the soundtrack album featured in the 1969 German film of the same name. The songs on this album are the earliest recordings of the German experimental rock band The Inner Space, who would soon become known under the name Can. Years after the film had fallen into obscurity, its soundtrack was eventually licensed from Hans Wewerka's archives and released in Spain in 2009.
All Gates Open: The Story of Can is a book about the German experimental rock band Can, written by British writer and editor Rob Young and Can founding member Irmin Schmidt. It was published in May 2018 in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber in two editions, a trade edition in hardback, and a handbound and autographed limited edition.
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