1976 compilation album by Can
Unlimited Edition is a compilation album by the krautrock band Can, released by Harvest Records in 1976 as a double album. Beforehand, United Artists Records released Limited Edition LP in 1974, which was a limited release of 15,000 copies. "Unlimited Edition" is a re-release of "Limited Edition", adding tracks 14–19 tracks.
The compilations collect unreleased music across the band's history from 1968 to 1975, and feature both of the band's major singers (Damo Suzuki and Malcolm Mooney). The cover photos were taken among the Elgin Marbles in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.
Background.
The compilation albums were "an interim measure" for Can's record company requiring some commercial activity, before the band could release a studio album. United Artists Records licensed the "Limited Edition" compilation and expanded it to a double LP with a further six unreleased tracks, under the title "Unlimited Edition".
"Limited Edition" was curated by Duncan Fallowell, British journalist and occasional Can collaborator.
Can recorded the song "Fall of Another Year" in the summer of 1969 during their stay in Zurich. The band visited Zurich after receiving an invitation to orchestrate a live score for "Prometheus Bound" play staged in Schauspielhaus Zürich theater, and recorded "Fall of Another Year" in theater's cellar room "with awful acoustics". The other songs recorded in Zurich include "Thief" from 1982 compilation album "Delay 1968" and "She Brings the Rain" from 1970 album "Soundtracks".
According to Irmin Schmidt, the song "Cutaway" was assembled into a collage with fragments recorded within a seven-year period. The fragments are "partially copied one after another at different speeds, on top of each other and so on".
Track notes.
The abbreviation "E.F.S.", appearing in several of the track titles, refers to "Ethnological Forgery Series", a series of songs in which Can "indulged their fascination with non-Western instruments, scales and rhythms".
The song "Doko E" is an excerpt from a free improvisation recorded at a reunion party in Schloss Nörvenich with a small invited audience, dated shortly before the first "Future Days" recording sessions. The excerpt is taken from half an hour performance, where "Jaki set up a plodding beat like a donkey bumping along the mountain trails of Provence, as Damo vented his frustrations with his recent stay" in Japan. The lyrics explore Damo's return to his homeland in Japan, which either wasn't his home any longer, or "that he no longer recognised himself in the mirror of his childhood surroundings". "Doko e" means "where to" in Japanese.
"Mother Upduff" is a retelling of an urban legend involving a family whose grandmother dies while they are on holiday together, and whose corpse—left wrapped up on the roof of the family car—is later stolen along with the car. The recording of tracks "I'm Too Leise" and "LH 702 (Nairobi/München)" are seen in the film "Can Free Concert 1972" by Peter Przygodda.
Reception.
Dominique Leone of "Pitchfork", writing a retrospective review for "Unlimited Edition", said the album was "one of the most underrated items in the band's catalog", especially praising "Gomorrha", "Ibis", "The Empress and the Ukraine King", "Mother Upduff", "Connection", and "Fall of Another Year". Leone described some of the "Ethnological Forgery Series" compositions as "sometimes bizarre, sometimes funny, wherein Can raid the world's various indigenous music and make stuff that would make both Steve Reich and Boredoms proud". Leone compared "Cutaway" to Faust recordings.
In "AllMusic" review, Ned Raggett described "Unlimited Edition" as "very much a dog's breakfast—albeit a highly entertaining one", saying the older songs are "manna from heaven for those interested in the band's roots". Reggett praised "a lot of" the tracks that "easily stands up on its own", highlighting "Cutaway", "The Empress and the Ukraine King", "I'm Too Leise", "Mother Upduff", and "Gomorrha". Though Reggett added that "a few tracks are seemingly here to fill space".
Track listing.
Note: Tracks 14–19 only included on "Unlimited Edition".
All tracks composed by Can
References.
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