Can - Ege Bamyasi

By Gene Booth

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.

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