Tago Mago | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | August 1971 | |||
Recorded | November 1970–February 1971 | |||
Studio | Schloss Nörvenich (Nörvenich, West Germany) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 73:27 | |||
Label | United Artists | |||
Producer | Can | |||
Can chronology | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
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. [5] 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. [6]
Tago Mago has been described as Can's best and most extreme record in sound and structure. [7] The album has received widespread critical acclaim and is cited as an influence by various artists. Ned Raggett of AllMusic called it "not merely one of the best Krautrock albums of all time, but one of the best albums ever, period." [1]
After Malcolm Mooney left Can in 1970, the band was left without a vocalist. [8] Bassist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit later saw Kenji "Damo" Suzuki busking outside a cafe in Munich, and invited him to join the band. [9] [10] Suzuki performed with the band at the Blow Up Club that evening, and subsequently became a full member of the group. [11]
Tago Mago was recorded by Czukay at Schloss Nörvenich, a medieval castle in Nörvenich, North Rhine-Westphalia, between November 1970 and February 1971. Early in 1968, the band had been invited to stay rent-free at the castle for one year by art collector Christoph Vohwinkel, who had rented it with the idea of transforming it into an art center. [12]
Recording took three months to complete, [13] with sessions often lasting up to 16 hours a day. [14] Czukay would edit the band's long, disorganized jams into structured songs. [15] He used only two two-track tape recorders to capture the sessions. [14] Because of the limits of two-track recording, the group favored recording in the castle's entrance hall to take advantage of its natural reverberation. [16] Czukay limited the band to three microphones, which were shared between Suzuki and Liebezeit and carefully placed to optimize their response. [14] [16] Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt experimented with oscillators in place of typical synthesizers on "Aumgn." [14]
Tago Mago was the first Can album to contain "in-between" recordings, for which Czukay secretly recorded the musicians jamming during pre-production sessions. [10] He also captured in-between recordings of the shouts of a child who mistakenly entered the room during recording, as well as the howling of Vohwinkel's dog. [14]
According to Czukay, the album was named after Illa de Tagomago, an islet near Ibiza in the Balearic archipelago, at Liebezeit's suggestion. [17]
Tago Mago was originally released in Germany in August 1971 by United Artists Records. The British release, with different artwork, followed in February 1972.
Tago Mago saw Can changing to a jazzier and more experimental sound than with previous recordings, with longer instrumental interludes and fewer vocals; this shift was caused by the dramatic difference between Suzuki and the band's more dominant former singer Mooney. [18] Can took sonic inspiration from sources including jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and from electronic avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen. [19] The album was also inspired by English occultist Aleister Crowley; it is named for Illa de Tagomago, an island that features in the Crowley legend, and the track "Aumgn" is named for Crowley's interpretation of the Hindu mantra syllable Om . [3] [20] In 2008, Czukay described the album as "an attempt in achieving a mystery musical world from light to darkness and return." [10] The group has referred to the album as their "magic record," [3] and the music has been described as having an "air of mystery and forbidden secrets." [9]
Tago Mago is a double album, with the first LP more conventional and structured and the second more experimental. [21] Roni Sarig, author of The Secret History of Rock, called the second LP "as close as [the group] ever got to avant-garde noise music." [7] Featuring Czukay's tape and radio experiments, the tracks "Aumgn" and "Peking O" have led music critics to call Tago Mago the group's "most extreme record in terms of sound and structure." [7] "Peking O" also makes use of an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, an early drum machine, combined with acoustic drumming. [22] "Aumgn" features keyboardist Irmin Schmidt chanting rather than Suzuki's vocals. [18] The closing track, "Bring Me Coffee or Tea," was described by Raggett as a "fine, fun little coda to a landmark record." [1]
The side-long track "Halleluhwah", which closes the first disc, was shortened from 18½ to 3½ minutes for release as the B-side of the non-album single "Turtles Have Short Legs", a novelty song recorded during the Tago Mago sessions and released by Liberty Records in 1971. [23] A different, 5½-minute edit of "Halleluhwah" would later appear on the compilation Cannibalism in 1978, while "Turtles Have Short Legs" remained out of print until its inclusion on Cannibalism 2 in 1992.
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 99/100 [24] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Drowned in Sound | 10/10 [25] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [26] |
Filter | 95% [24] |
Pitchfork | 9.3/10 (2004) [27] 10/10 (2011; 40th Anniversary Edition) [28] |
Record Collector | [29] |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 9/10 [30] |
Stylus | B [31] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [32] |
Uncut | [33] |
Tago Mago has been critically acclaimed, and is credited with pioneering various modern musical styles. Raggett called Tago Mago a "rarity of the early '70s, a double album without a wasted note." [1] Many critics, particularly in the United Kingdom, were eager to praise the album, and by the end of 1971 Can had played their first show in the country. [34] [35]
Julian Cope wrote in Krautrocksampler that Tago Mago "sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after" and described the lyrics as delving "below into the Unconscious." [13] Dummy called it "a genre-defining work of psychedelic, experimental rock music." [4] Melody Maker critic Simon Reynolds described it as "shamanic avant-funk." [2]
Various artists have cited Tago Mago as an influence on their work. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. called it "stunning" in his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. [36] Bobby Gillespie of the Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream said of the album: "The music was like nothing I'd ever heard before, not American, not rock & roll but mysterious and European." [37] Mark Hollis of Talk Talk called Tago Mago "an extremely important album" and an inspiration for Talk Talk's 1991 album Laughing Stock . [38] Marc Bolan of T. Rex listed Suzuki's freeform lyricism as an inspiration. [39] Journalist Nick Kent likened the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees on their debut album The Scream to the "ingenuity of Tago Mago", [40] and the band's co-founder, bassist Steven Severin, has expressed admiration for the album. [41] Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke of Radiohead have both cited the album as an early influence. [42]
Several artists have covered songs from Tago Mago or recorded songs based on those from the album. The Flaming Lips' song "Take Meta Mars", from their 1990 album In a Priest Driven Ambulance , began as an attempt to cover "Mushroom"; however, as the band members had only heard "Mushroom" once and did not possess a copy of it, "Take Meta Mars" is only similar-sounding and not a proper cover. [43] The Jesus and Mary Chain have covered "Mushroom" live, and included a live version on the compilation Barbed Wire Kisses. The Fall recorded "I Am Damo Suzuki", based on the Tago Mago track "Oh Yeah", for their 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace . Swedish band Komeda included a cover of "Mushroom" on their 1998 single "It's Alright Baby". Remixes of several Tago Mago tracks by various artists are included on the 1997 Can remix album Sacrilege .
Tago Mago is listed in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, which states: "Even after 30 years Tago Mago sounds refreshingly contemporary and gloriously extreme." [44]
Publication/Source | Accolade | Year | Rank |
---|---|---|---|
Pitchfork | "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s" | 2004 | 29 [45] |
Uncut | "200 Greatest Albums of All Time" | 2016 | 88 [46] |
NME | "NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" | 2013 | 409 [47] |
"Some of the Greatest Double LPs Ever Issued" | 1991 | 21 [48] | |
Sounds | "The 100 Best Albums of All Time" | 1986 | 51 [49] |
Mojo | "The 100 Records That Changed the World" | 2007 | 62 [50] |
The Guardian | "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die" | 2007 | - [51] |
Tom Moon | "1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die" | 2008 | - [52] |
All tracks are written by Can (Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt and Damo Suzuki).
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Paperhouse" | 7:28 |
2. | "Mushroom" | 4:03 |
3. | "Oh Yeah" | 7:23 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Halleluhwah" | 18:32 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Aumgn" | 17:37 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Peking O" | 11:37 |
2. | "Bring Me Coffee or Tea" | 6:47 |
Total length: | 73:27 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Mushroom" (Live 1972) | 8:42 |
2. | "Spoon" (Live 1972) | 29:55 |
3. | "Halleluhwah" (Live 1972) | 9:12 |
Total length: | 47:49 |
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.
Irmin Schmidt is a German keyboardist and composer, best known as a founding member of the band Can.
Michael Karoli was a German guitarist, violinist and composer. He was a founding member of the influential krautrock band Can.
Kenji Suzuki, known as Damo Suzuki (ダモ鈴木), was a Japanese musician best known as the vocalist for the German Krautrock group Can between 1970 and 1973. Born in 1950 in Kobe, Japan, he moved to Europe in the late 1960s where he was spotted busking in Munich, West Germany, by Can bassist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Can had just split with their vocalist Malcolm Mooney, and asked Suzuki to sing over tracks from their 1970 compilation album Soundtracks. Afterwards, he became their full time singer, appearing on the three influential albums Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyası (1972) and Future Days (1973).
Monster Movie is the debut studio album by German rock band Can, released in August 1969 by Music Factory and Liberty Records.
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.
Soundtracks is a 1970 compilation album by the German krautrock group Can, containing music written for various films. The album marks the departure of the band's original vocalist Malcolm Mooney, who sings on two tracks, and his replacement by Damo Suzuki. "Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone" features Suzuki's first recorded performance with the band. Stylistically, the record also documents the group's transition to the more meditative and experimental mode of the studio albums that followed.
Future Days is the fourth studio album by the German experimental rock group Can, released on 1 August 1973 by United Artists. It was the group's final album to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki, who subsequently left the band, and explores a more atmospheric sound than their previous releases.
Soon Over Babaluma is the fifth studio album by the rock music group Can. This is the band's first album following the departure of Damo Suzuki in 1973. The vocals are provided by guitarist Michael Karoli and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt. It is also their last album that was created using a two-track tape recorder.
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.
"Halleluwah" is a song by the krautrock band Can, from their 1971 album Tago Mago. The track, which originally took up a whole side of long-playing vinyl record, lasts for 18 minutes and 28 seconds and is characteristic of the band's sound around 1971 in that it features a vast array of improvised guitars and keyboards, tape editing, and the rhythm section "pounding out a monster trance/funk beat". The drum beat for which the song is famous is repeated almost continuously by Jaki Liebezeit, with only minor variations, throughout the course of the 18-minute jam. In one line of the song, Damo Suzuki's lyrics mention all the songs from side one of Tago Mago: "mushroom head, oh yeah, paper house."
"Mushroom" is a song by the German krautrock band Can, from their 1971 album Tago Mago. It's the shortest song on the album, with a duration of 4 minutes and 8 seconds. A video was made for the track which has been shown on MTV.
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.
Anthology, also called Anthology - 25 Years and Anthology 1968-1993, is a compilation double album by Krautrock artists Can which was released in 1994. Several of the songs are presented in edited form. The first CD has the same track listing as Can's previous compilation, Cannibalism.
"Mother Sky" is a song by the krautrock group Can, written by members Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt, and Damo Suzuki. Lasting fourteen and a half minutes, it was recorded in July 1970 for the soundtrack of Jerzy Skolimowski's film Deep End and released in 1970 on Can's Soundtracks album. It opens in mid guitar solo before settling down into a familiar Can groove as singer Damo Suzuki mulls the relative merits of madness and "Mother Sky".
The Peel Sessions is a compilation album by the German experimental rock band Can. Released in November 1995, it contains songs from four sessions recorded for John Peel's Radio 1 show. The sessions took place in February 1973, January 1974, October 1974, and May 1975. The songs are mostly unreleased improvisations. Different recordings of "Geheim" and "Mighty Girl" were released on Landed and Out of Reach respectively.
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.
Romantic Warriors IV: Krautrock is a trilogy of feature-length documentaries about progressive music written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder. RW4 focuses on the progressive rock music from Germany popularly known as Krautrock, although the integration of Krautrock into the progressive rock genre is a purely American notion. In Europe, the conventional wisdom is that Krautrock can be considered at most as the connection between psychedelic rock and progressive rock. The term "Krautrock" was applied after-the-fact by British journalists, and in fact the German bands share very few similarities.
Live in Paris 1973 is a live double-album by German krautrock band Can, recorded at a performance of the band at L'Olympia in Paris, France. It was released on vinyl and CD by Spoon Records on 23 February 2024, two weeks after the death of Can member Damo Suzuki on 9 February 2024.