Now krautrock sounds like a silly term for someone who is new to German experimental rock acts and not already accustomed to Can and Faust's music. Krautrock is pretty much the term used to describe German Prog Rock fromt he 70's, where bands like Can and early Kraftwerk dominated with a funky style of 60's rock music infused with unorthodox and original elements.
Tago Mago is Can's most popular album and the most unique one of the often talked about holy trinity of Can, the three album stretch of Tago Mago (71), Ege Bamyasi (72) and Future Days (73), where Tago Mago is the combination of the rhytmic, funky, and tropical elements of Future Days with the more experimental stray from progressive rock that was Ege Bamyasi all mixed in one. While my personal favorite Can release is Future Days, I do believe that Tago Mago deserve the praise it often receives for its uniqueness and complexity. It's a record that I still don't think I fully grasp the intention of, and the second half of the record is still quite a mystery to me and something I'm not quite sure if I love or hate even though it's been almost a year since I first heard it and there's been many playthroughs in those days that have passed.
Tago Mago starts of with a simple A-Side that I believe that most fans of Anglo-Prog will enjoy. It is after all just a different, more alternative take on standard rock music even if it does a lot of things differently from a band like Pink Floyd. There's no grandiose feel, the focus of the music is on rhytm and melody, vocals are incoherent ramblings and the drumming takes a centrical role and almost being the forefront of the bands music.
I have a hard time putting words into how any kind of prog rock really sounds so I'll try to stay away from long descriptions of the musical notions of the four first tracks on Tago Mago and stick with calling them funky and groovy. Drumming is, as I mentioned before, a heavy role of Can's music, accompanying the guitar lines in a different fashion to other progressive rock. The band dances after Jaki Liebezeit's drumming.
Now the first side is much more easily approachable for someone with a background in progressive rock, but it is the second side of the record that makes the record the inaccessible mess it is. After the momentuous Halleluhwah we enter the second disc and the records B-Side with the track Aumgn, which is an experiment in music almost reminiscnent of modern day dark ambient where haunting, ghastly vocals move around a sonic airspace of random kinds of noises. There's no band playing anymore, there's no drumming, no guitars, just frightening noises that have no place next to the groovy side that opened the album.
Aumgn still remains an experimental rock masterpiece who's influence can be foind in so much to come, from the experimental side of post-punk that would emerge in a couple of years with bands like This Heat and The Pop Group, aswell as a being reminiscnent of free-jazz during the final minutes of the song as the drumming enters the fray to increase the chaos and uncertainty of the track.
It fades into Peking O, another experimental mess that might be even more frightening seeing to the screamed incoherent vocals that aren't too far from a track like Frankie Teardrop of Suicide's S/T, while Bring Me Coffe Or Tea ends the album with a circle around to more standardized sound which still feels quite the distance away from a track like Paperhouse or Oh Yeah.
So how did Tago Mago end up this far up this list? I'm not saying that the band and the album doesn't deserve its place on here, I'm just questioning how, on a list that features barely a single truly difficult album, you find a record like Tago Mago who's second half is far more inaccessible than anything you'll find on the next 200 spots on the list.
The closest you'll find is most likely Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, a jazz fusion record that combines the ideas of free jazz with the rock music of the 60's, to create an almost two hours long opus that challenges a listeners attention and focus on a completely different level. While Bitches Brew might not be easily digestible, it doesn't challenge the listeneres perception of what is music as much as Tago Mago might do.
Tago Mago might be the biggest challenge on the top 100 and one that I don't expect anyone who isn't familiar with a majority of the output on this chart will enjoy anytime soon after their first meeting with the record. Its a very different breed of progressive rock, as much of the German output is when compared to the biggest Brittish bands, but its most likely the most definite and essential of the biggest krautrock releases out there (next to Faust and Neu).
Can
Tago Mago [1971]
8/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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