One of the big finds on this project has been Krautrock, which I am way into to this day.
This album, Can's debut full-length, has some of the trademarks of the sound they would help create: plenty of icy instrumentation and repetition. But there's also a much more raw, rock side that later krautrock would have buffed out, not to mention an even healthier-than-usual dallop of Velvet Underground inspiration, especially on the opener's keening guitar noise and strained vocals. It thoroughly works though, bristling with too-fast energy and desperation and tension. The influence continues on the spare, dissnonant detuned Mary, Mary So Contrary, after which Outside My Door suddenly veers into deranged, Stoogesesque territory. The band would never record a song that straight up rocked quite this hard again.
And then of course comes the crushing, meandering sidelong epic, Yoo Do Right. This is the origin of that brutally experimental Can that would inspire the Boredoms and countless other batshit noise experimenters. Even the Velvets rarely put out anything this nuts. In its own way though, its strangely compelling, a can't-tear-your-ears-away trainwreck in slow motion.
Which is all to say, this is a great, seminal example of proto-Krautrock and the broader avant rock scene of the late 60's 4.5/5
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