Music

Average customer rating:

My Current Favorite Album
An excellent blend of experimentation and atmospherics
Another masterpiece from the lords of krautrock.
"I'm so Green" indeed. As fresh as the day it was made.
Multifaceted and inventive

Ege Bamyasi
Can
Manufacturer: Mute U.S.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Electronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Tago Mago
Future Days
Monster Movie
Neu!
Soon Over Babaluma

ASIN: B000654Z1E
Release Date: 2004-11-30

Tracks:

Pinch
Sing Swan Song
One More Night
Vitamin C
Soup
I'm So Green
Spoon

Customer Reviews:

My Current Favorite Album.......2007-02-13

What is so appealing about this particular CAN cd is that the songs/compositions are each so distinct which is not always the case with avant-garde music.

I'm not a music critic nor am I particularly knowledgable about the 60's and 70's avant-garde scene (at least not beyond Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Zappa, Beefheart, Skip Spence & Brian Eno). I am, however, a huge fan of unique music when I find it and this (and Tago Mago) are my current favorite albums.

I run about ten miles a day and that is time enough to listen to Ege Bamyasi & Tago Mago back to back (I plan to buy Future Days next). Some days I prefer listening to my more melodious playlists but when I'm feeling like moving beyond the borderlands of the familiar CAN is the best sonic companion. This music is earthy but never merely ambient because the rhythms (drums especially) are so intense.

Occasionally I will think a particular song sounds like a precursor to Radiohead or some other modern group but I never feel like this music is trapped in the early seventies. Or, another way of saying that, is to say that the music does capture and preserve the seventies but only the best parts of the seventies: free form Jazz, progressive rock (the subtle kind not the pompous stadium filling kind), and the kinetic structures of much of the late seventies best punk ( the Buzzcocks are big CAN fans as are other punk and post punk groups). The music is eclectic in the best possible sense. Its never cold like some experimental music but always quirky and intriguing.

I would recommend Ege Bamyasi if you are new to this group. And if you like that then get Tago Mago.

*Sometimes experimental music is not particularly enjoyable but we listen to it because we think its good for us to stretch our minds, but this stuff is instantly infectious.

An excellent blend of experimentation and atmospherics .......2007-02-10

Ege Bamyasi (1972) finds Can in the midst of a creative peak that spanned 1971-1973 and is an excellent blend of their experimental side and the atmospheric approach adopted on the excellent Future Days album (1973). The musicians on Ege Bamyasi comprise the "classic" Can lineup: Holger Czukay (bass guitar); Michael Karoli (electric and acoustic guitars); Jaki Leibzeit (drums and percussion); Irmin Schmidt (synthesizers and organ); and lead vocalist Damo Suzuki.

The seven tracks on the album range in length from 3'03" to 10'25". Musically, this album is loaded with bouncy and hypnotic grooves set down by Jaki and Holger, which are offset nicely by the eccentric vocal style of Damo. There are also quiet and meditative tracks (Sing Swan Song), and heavier tracks that recollect bits and pieces of the experimental segments of Tago Mago (1971). The short track, I'm so Green is the most lighthearted and cheery tune on the album.

This is an excellent album by Can that is very highly recommended along with the fan favorite Tago Mago and the atmospheric Future Days (which is my personal favorite).

Another masterpiece from the lords of krautrock........2006-12-31

After the sonic fury of Tago Mago, CAN decided to tone it down a bit on their brilliant followup, 1972's Ege Bamyasi. That's not to say the freakouts aren't there (Pinch and Soup come to mind, especially the later's noisy explosive finale.), but other tracks sound like the band decided to let loose and just have fun. Tracks such as Sing Swan Song sound like a soothing natural bath, and others like I'm So Green, Vitamin C, and Pinch bring in a lot more funk than the previous album, with a few electronic drums and other tricks into the mold.

As previously mentioned though, some of the tracks are a bit intense. Pinch begins as a funky jam, but later on, slide whistles, screechy guitar, and incomprhensible mumbling follow on. Soup begins with some weird horn noises and quiet jazz guitar, while evolving into a intense keyboard/drum machine jam, followed by noisy outbursts that bring to mind Fantomas some 25 years later.

While it's not as wild as Tago Mago or any of their other work, Ege Bamyasi is a good place to start into the weird, wild world of Can. I highly reccomend it.

"I'm so Green" indeed. As fresh as the day it was made. .......2006-10-24

Where as "Tago Mago" is best experienced in one sitting, "Ege Bamyasi" is much more of a song orientated album. The exhausting "Pinch" introduces Can not as a group of individual musicians but as a single entity. Like the parts of a living organism there is no lead, only a series of components working together by doing their own individual tasks. The drums and bass flutter more than they beat, the guitar stutters more than it riffs, while the bizzare mumbled vocals somehow blend in with the chaotic scenery; yet it all comes together to make for an addictive hypnotic jam. This is perhaps the true essence of Damo era Can, what seperates them from just about any other band of the rock genre.

The orient kissed, "Sing Swan Song" pours into clarity with the sound of running water. Based around a gentle melodic ring, the sultry vocals whisper sweet nothings as the song creates images of a quiet shimmering stream before fading with a rising crash. Suddenly, "One More Night" jumps at you with an upbeat, urban night club groove. Unlike the previous two songs the music isn't loose, but tight and repetitive to the point that it's almost cold and robotic. Breaking out of the hypnotic trance of the previous track, the more dynamic and funky "Vitamin C" cooly swaggers with a nervous tension building groove before erupting into one of the greatest chorus hooks of all time. The song is so catchy, fun, and timeless, it could probably be a hit at a danceclub or party near you.

"Soup" explodes with blasts of violent Funk before heading into more trippy territory that recalls the nightmarish B-Side of "Tago Mago". Bizzare metallic and drilling effects twist and contort around the listener while a possessed Damo speaks and screams in tongues. "I'm So Green" busts out of the nightmare with warm laid back funk. The short but catchy song builds momentum before climaxing with a fun breaking dancing beat. The creepy but urgent anthem,"Spoon," opens with a funky drum beat that may sound familiar as it was sampled by the Beastie Boys on "Paul's Boutique." Menacing stabbing keyboards puncutate the suspenseful song that wouldn't sound out of place in a cinematic car chase. The ghostly vocal hook rises and falls in such a way that it feels like it's being launched out of the distance and flying straight into your face. While more approachable than "Tago Mago," "Ege Bayamsi" is by no means bubblegum pop for the masses. However, it is very pleasing, digestable music you shouldn't have any trouble dancing to. A wanderful overall album with every song having something unique and special to offer.

Multifaceted and inventive.......2006-09-22

In the odd and endlessly fascinating world of Can, this may be - after years of exploring and rediscovering all of their highly varied releases - their best.

This was the first of their releases I became familiar with, and in retrospect I think it more or less distills every great idea found on other, more sprawling releases.

Recalling the first time I ever heard this (circa 1990), the octopus-limbed percussion undulations of the opener ("Pinch") first caught my attention, and I was intrigued by the tape experiments that would surface farther on into the CD - both exerted a strong and obvious influence upon certain later electronic groups, and - more notably - several of the more intriguing post-punk groups, starting in the late 70s.

But there are other, perhaps less commented upon virtues to be found here as well - the shimmering textures of "One More Night" (sonics explored in greater depth on their shimmering next full-length, FUTURE DAYS), and the surprisingly tight popcraft of "Spoon."

All around, a very multifaceted and inventive release, with an influence still rippling through the musical underground.

-David Alston

Average customer rating:

Ege Bamyasi
Can
Manufacturer: United Artists
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Electronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0009J8FFO
Release Date: 2005-06-27

Tracks:

Pinch
Sing Swan Song
One More Night
Vitamin C
Soup
I'm So Green
Spoon

Album Description

Japanese pressing 0f 1972 album is remastered and comes packaged in a miniature LP sleeve. Vine. 2005.

Album Details

Japanese Limited Edition Issue of the Album Classic in a Deluxe, Miniaturized LP Sleeve Replica of the Original Vinyl Album Artwork.

Average customer rating:

One of their best
A Can Masterpiece (no big surprise)
forecast of the future...and beyond
the best 40 minutes you can possibly give yr ears.
tago mago's slightly ignored brother

Ege Bamyasi
Can
Manufacturer: Mute U.S.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Electronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Progressive | Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Soon Over Babaluma
Future Days
Tago Mago
Future Days
Faust IV

ASIN: B0000067X3
Release Date: 1998-05-19

Tracks:

Pinch
Sing Swan Song
One More Night
Vitamin C
Soup
I'm So Green
Spoon

Amazon.com

By the time of 1972's Ege Bamyasi, Can had consolidated, with singer Damo Suzuki fully entrenched as the unstable Michael Mooney's replacement. Suzuki's vocals range from shrieks to inaudible chanting, tackling subjects as mundane as "your vitamin C" while implying an archetypal depth. Evidence of a band at the height of their interactive powers is here. Anchored by the "percussion and flexation" (as he's credited) of Jaki Liebezeit, Can delivers seven pounding sermons of rhythmic prowess, peaking with the 10:30 sound storm of "Soup." Liebezeit's long drum riff in "Pinch"--pegged by a resounding bass thoom at the end of each repetition--creates an ellipse in which feedback bursts, guitar and keyboard note clusters, and Damo's vocal witchery combine into a perfectly balanced, loping cyclone, with each element beautifully playing off the next. Like Miles's On the Corner, Ege Bamyasi is a definitive statement on merging jazz ideology with the surging menace of rock & roll. --Gene Booth

Customer Reviews:

One of their best.......2005-04-03

Can's 4th album found them moving in a more ambient direction after the experimental freakouts that culminated with Tago Mago. Ege Bamyasi has just the right mix of the two styles to make it one of Can's most entertaining and satisfying recordings, and while I rate Future Days as the band's ultimate achievement, I would recommend Ege Bamyasi as an ideal introduction to the band since it neatly and concisely brings together the various aspects of the Can sound on one CD.

The two longer workouts, "Pinch" and "Soup," recall the wild and improvised nature of Tago Mago while reining in enough of that album's excess to make them more accessible. While many of their fellow Krautrock bands tended to be electronics-heavy, Can used a standard lineup of vocals-guitar-keys-bass-drums, then proceeded to do things with their instruments that were anything but standard. Jaki Liebezeit was a human drum machine capable of startlingly precise rhythms and polyrhythms that provided the beat-centric base for the Can sound. Besides his intuitive and brilliant bass work, Holger Czukay loved playing around with experimental studio technology and provided an additional veneer to the sound. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and guitarist Michael Karoli avoided any of the "normal" soloing associated with their instruments, instead choosing to coax new and different effects which included everything from ambient soundscapes to percussive type attacks.

As for Japanese singer Damo Suzuki, his completely unique mixture of opium den ranting, beat poetry and assorted chants, croons and shouts re-wrote the definition of "lead singer."

"Sing Swan Song" begins with watery nature sounds just like Yes' Close To The Edge the same year, before settling into an atmospheric mid-tempo groove entwined with Karoli's sinewy lines and Suzuki's drowsy croon.

"One More Night" and "Vitamin C" both show just why this band is considered so influential. You cannot believe this stuff was recorded way back in 1972 when it sounds so fresh and modern. Both songs are insanely catchy, and my only complaint is that I wish "Vitamin C" was longer so I wouldn't have to hit the repeat button all the time.

The album is rounded out by a pair of 3-minute "pop" songs that showed just how far Can had come from the 20-minute jams of only a year earlier. Both songs set up the usual killer rhythmic underpinning, while everybody else, even Suzuki, seems to be trying to sound like a "normal" pop group. Which of course they don't, and we wouldn't want it any other way!

There isn't a bad track on this album, and it has hooks that will settle deep within your psyche. It's experimental and avant-garde, yet entertaining and accessible. 5 stars.

A Can Masterpiece (no big surprise).......2004-12-30

Since Can established themselves as the best band in the world with 'Tago Mago,' it became customary for them to forge a few genres that wouldn't exist for another decade on each of their successive albums. Modern house and techno owes just about everything to this little masterpiece, Ege Bamyasi. That isn't to say that this album is just proto-dance music - Can is very much an avant-garde/experimental combo and finds plenty of time to dink around with cool noises inspired by Stockhausen along with creating incredibly prescient rhythms.

I would cover every track, since they're all brilliant, but since I'm lazy I'll just point out the finest moments - "Pinch," nine minutes of swirling keyboards, surreal mumbled vocalizations, and insanely funky rhythms bending and twisting in mesmerizing patterns, "Soup," a distorted monster-funk anthem that spirals into utter avant-garde madness with Japanese mock-opera ranting overtop, and "I'm so Green, the single funkiest, coolest little piece of music ever recorded, with the most infectious tune you'll ever hear and a rhythm so bloody cool you could get Strom Thurmond dancing to it. Quit reading this amateurish review by a pseudo-hip English major and buy this thing.

forecast of the future...and beyond.......2003-12-10

Let's face it, if the members of Can were stock brokers back in 73' they'd see Bill Gates comin' from miles away. These guys are more than a genre, they took music to where it is today. Today's pioneering bands like Stereolab, Tortoise, and the ambient soundscapes that proliferate (Tosca, Mouse on Mars, etc.),owe their livlihoods to Can. They are without a doubt one of the most influential bands ever. Let's face it, no one ever came close to their originality then..or now.

the best 40 minutes you can possibly give yr ears........2003-11-14

kan u dig it!!? it appears I haven't reviewed this yet which is inexplicable since I love it more than possibly anything ever. want to run home, find the disc, whack it on & experience pure joyous SOUND to the maxx. the perfect blend of schooled muso & freefrom, experimental & funk, pop yet uncommercial, but bah all this be irrelevant. unless you're a strict genre nazi or devoid of taste it's a more than worthwhile purchase. could write more, favourite songs but they're all good, there's a couple of extended freakout jams, a couple of slow chillers & 3 perfect short hits all mixed up just right. I should work in sales.

tago mago's slightly ignored brother.......2003-11-06

everybody who knows can, knows that the tago mago-ege bamyasi-future days era was by far and away the most interesting and exciting, and, while good old tago has been reviewed almost 40 times here, ege bamyasi remains slightly ignored. come on! this album deserves equal attention people! anyway, sfter releasing what is arguably one of the greatest influences on modern rock music with tago mago the year before, can were faced with the tricky challenge of following it up. it would have been a mistake to try to make a sprawling epic, a tago mago part II really; tago mago sounded like a one-off when it was released and should remain that way. which i why i feel that the bands decision to assemble an much shorter album was so well chosen (not that the band were probably thinking this, they were always so implulsive anyway). ege bamyasi sounds like what chart topping pop would have sounded like if someone like joe meek had revolutionised pop music instead of the beatles: melodic, funky, inventive and funny. it begins with one of the longest tracks, and one with the strongest relationship to the music on tago. pinch is a ten minute jazz-funk workout with jaki liebezeit at the driving seat, proving that he was just as capable of incessant, complex grooves as funky, playful hard-hitting jazz improvisation. he is wonderful on the track, so much delicate touch and hard punches, the rest of the band follow with subtle touches: karoli's wailing guitar feedback is pure minimalism, schmidt's psych-funk keyboards, czukay's snaking basslines and, of course, the incomprehensible suzuki mantras. it remains one of my favorite can tracks, and one of the strangest. the only other lengthy track is soup, which, at ten minutes-plus, can be filed away with augmn and peking o for collage madness. it is the weakest track here. starting with a loud, rather punky guitar section (the loudest bit on the album) it quickly discards all notions of structure in favour of bizarre ethno-percussion and keyboard vomiting. but why is it even here? fundamentally, it is no worse than the second half of tago mago, but it doesn't seem necessary. i have heard that it was quickly recorded as a deadline loomed, and it sounds it. the reason i am happy to put up with augmn and peking o off tago mago but not this is that the delicious progression of atmosphere isn't there as it was on TG. impressive, yes, but do you really want this shoved in the middle of such a wonderful album, taking up more than a quarter of the time? but, tig, augmn and peking o take up MORE than a quarter of the tago mago. true, but can you honestly say that you listen to those tracks every time you slot the album into your player? i doubt it. tago mago was perfectly designed for you to avoid those tracks if you didn't want them... just listen from track 1 to 4 and then maybe whack on bring me coffee or tea. simple. those tracks were there if you really wanted to slip into the psychosis of the album's trip, something which i have enjoyed doing. but not everytime. on this occassion you are practically forced to listen to it. especially when the standout previous track segues into it. vitamin c is a rampant bossanova stomp which is, amazingly, built almost entirely from drums, bass and vocals. the density of the sound they create here puts any band who needs to draft in a 40-piece orchestra to flesh out their music to shame. it just rocks! the chorus (yes, a chorus on a can ablum, and there are many more) is so dumbly catch it could only have been written by a genius or an idiot savant (stand up damo!) you'll be humming this for years to come. elsewhere, sing swan song is a gorgeous ambient waltz, czukay's subaquatic bass throbbing throughout and damo suzuki singing beatifully. the slightly eastern ambience only adds to the song's mystique. one more night is the epitomy of minimalism, each band member contibuting the barest hint of melody and rhythm but producing an incredibly dense whole. the final two tracks are the most obviously conventional (in can's terms) but are slightly obscured by coming right after soup. i'm so green is a light funky number with a playful melody and increasing pace while spoon (a number one single in native germany! why doesn't this ever happen in england?) is a great showdown between jaki liebezeit and a drum machine driving an oddly anthemnic melody along. it ends the album on a playful note which begs "play me again". and you do... a lot. the main problem (and the reason i can't give the album 5 stars) is that the sequencing is all wrong. first three tracks, fine. in fact, the first four tracks are excellent, but with vitamin c blending so seamlessly into soup you either have to be very tactfull with your volume button, or suffer the horribly jarring experience of cutting a track off mid-flow to avoid soup. better would have been like this: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 4, 5. that way you can bask in the beauty of can at their weirdo-pop best and sink into their freak-out at the end of you wish. nevertheless, this is an unbelievable album, one which deserves more praise than it gets. it is just as full of inventiveness and verve as tago mago and more accessible too. this would be my first chioce of can album to introduce a friend to their immense work. as it stands it is some of the most mind-blowing music ever produced.

Average customer rating:

Ege Bamyasi
Can
Manufacturer: Restless Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B00000E75C
Release Date: 1990-04-13

Average customer rating:

One of their best
A Can Masterpiece (no big surprise)
forecast of the future...and beyond
the best 40 minutes you can possibly give yr ears.
tago mago's slightly ignored brother

Ege Bamyasi
Can
Manufacturer: Mute U.S.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Electronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Progressive | Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Soon Over Babaluma
Future Days
Tago Mago
Future Days
Faust IV

ASIN: B000003Z71
Release Date: 1995-05-09

Tracks:

Pinch
Sing Swan Song
One More Night
Vitamin C
Soup
I'm So Green
Spoon

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

One of their best.......2005-04-03

A Can Masterpiece (no big surprise).......2004-12-30

forecast of the future...and beyond.......2003-12-10

the best 40 minutes you can possibly give yr ears........2003-11-14

tago mago's slightly ignored brother.......2003-11-06

Music:

Music