Beschreibung
On 8 April 2017 Can founding member Irmin Schmidt premiered an orchestral reinterpretation of classic Can material alongside new work with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in London, before an all-star band of former Can members and long-time admirers paid tribute to their pioneering music.
Assembling their music through improvisation and studio editing, Can’s writing process resembled collage. Can founder Irmin Schmidt took that approach to their entire oeuvre, conducting the world premiere of his piece Can Dialog, written with Gregor Schwellenbach, which weaves together quotations and abstractions of some of the band’s most renowned pieces.
After an extended interval screening of Can’s 1972 performance at Cologne Sporthalle, the second half of the show brought together a supergroup led by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), featuring Can’s first singer Malcolm Mooney, realising and reinterpreting the band’s music.
Laying the foundations of what came to be known as Krautrock, Can became one of the most influential avant-rock groups of all time, and echoes of their work is audible in everything from Joy Division, to Radiohead, to Kanye West. Can combined the deconstructed rock’n’roll of The Velvet Underground, the determined rhythmic propulsion of Sly & the Family Stone, and the appetite for studio experimentation of their former teacher Karlheinz Stockhausen to create a new kind of rock music - something avant-garde and groovy, both wildly experimental and utterly compelling.
The show was preceded by a Q&A with Rob Young, author of a new book devoted to Can, published by Faber & Faber - one-part biography, one part memoir by Schmidt himself.
After the show a DJ set by The Kosmische Club took place: set up back in 1996 in a bid to introduce London to Krautrock, the club now hosts nights across the UK and Europe bringing Krautrock to the masses.
The line-up for the Can supergroup was:
Pat Thomas, Deb Googe, Valentina Magaletti, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Tom Relleen, James Sedwards, Steve Shelley