Can

Live In Paris 1973

“As this time-portal demonstrates, their potency as a power force, ideal and totem endures and will endure.” – MOJO 4* 

“…among the greatest documents of their untouchable alchemy…” – Record Collector 5*

The second phase of the acclaimed Can Live series, Can Live in Paris 1973, is released today on vinyl, CD and digitally via Mute and Future Days (the new EU label created by Spoon Records).

Live in Paris 1973 finds Can in magical form for a performance recorded at L’Olympia in Paris on 12 May 1973, marking the first of the live series to feature the vocalist Damo Suzuki, whose untimely death was announced earlier this month. From 1970-73 the core line up of Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli, and Holger Czukay were joined by Japanese improviser and vocalist Suzuki, they met after a chance encounter while Suzuki was busking in Munich, and several months after the Paris 1973 performance he left the band when his wanderlust took him back on the road.

Listen to Can Live in Paris 1973: https://mute.ffm.to/can-lip73

This new album in the series allows us to witness the band at a particularly important stage of their career, with two of their most acclaimed albums – Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi, the latter feeding into the Paris performance – recently released. The recording itself was uncovered and meticulously pieced together from recordings within the Spoon Records vaults, as well as those sent in by helpful fans. The live recordings were then brought into the 21^st century by founding member Irmin Schmidt and producer / engineer René Tinner who have compiled and edited all the albums in this series.

Founded in the late ‘60s and disbanded just over a decade later, Can’s unprecedented and bold marriage of hypnotic grooves and avant-garde instrumental textures has made them one of the most important and innovative bands of all time, and these albums reveal a totally different perspective to the group. Across the series you may hear familiar themes, riffs and motifs popping up and rippling through these jams, often as fleetingly recognised faces in a swirling crowd. At other points, you will hear music that didn’t make it onto the official album canon, and elsewhere you’ll hear recognizable tracks from their incredible career. In these recordings Can go to even more extreme ranges than with their studio work: from mellow, ambient drift-rock to the white-dwarf sonic-meltdown moments they used to nickname ‘Godzillas’. And even as they adapt and chase the rhythm from minute to minute, you can hear the extraordinary musical telepathy its members shared. 

The new release follows Can Live in Brighton 1975 [“Pure dynamite… keep them coming” – MOJO]; Can Live in Stuttgart 1975, [Uncut’s Reissue of the Year, #2 in MOJO’s Reissues of the Year, #7 in The Wire’s Archive Reissues of the Year plus more], and Can Live in Cuxhaven 1976, which again featured heavily in the Reissues of the Year. Two further releases are planned for 2024, news to follow.

Can Live in Paris 1973 is released on double vinyl, 2 x CD and digitally via Mute / Spoon Records on 23 February 2024.

CAN LIVE IN PARIS 1973

Paris 73 Eins (36:27)

Paris 73 Zwei (09:20)

Paris 73 Drei (16:35)

Paris 73 Vier (15:09)

Paris 73 Fünf (13:46)

Please note that the rather abrupt ending is due to no adequate sound sources existing of the final notes of this show

Listen to / buy the album: https://mute.ffm.to/can-lip73 

Listen to an excerpt here: https://youtu.be/_fAqv3-4o-o