4Th Door Review Copy1

MARGINS OF MUSIC 3 Science Music and the Angel Radar: Being Holger Czukay Once Holger Czukay tuned into ocean cargo ships and wove their radio messages into the luminous electronic waft of Can’s music. Student of Stockhausen, potential rocket scientist, he also used to wear white Japanese gloves when playing bass live. He’s continued the legacy of Can’s music with a tunestack of individual and influential releases since 1980’s ‘Movies’. Recent reports state he’s working on a Techno release. Hoping to be lateral I thought these would be among the interesting reasons for approaching science and technology in another way. ince the release of ‘Movies’ in 1980, a during the war, and later, presumably afterwards, went well-timed and influential record on the to the Gerhard Mercator Scientific school in Duisberg. Sshores of post-punk, a minority of music “A horror”, is how he describes the school. Mercator freaks, many of whom were post-punk graduates and was a Belgian Renaissance scientist, the most knowl- who found the culture which was growing out of eight- edgable Geographer of his time and was among those ies values difficult to remain in step with, looked expec- who developed the original Globe or Planisphere, an tantly towards each subsequent Holger release, awaited influential instrument in the contemporary develop- as much for the sheer surprise level, as the strange inge- ment of cartography and navigational mapping. At the nuity and shimmering, crystal production of the music. school, where Czukay says Werner Von Braun was also Czukay had been a member of Can. And Can was a pupil, he learnt a lot of physics and maths, potential- one of the bands for whom the punk world of the late ly useful for space research. “I thought I wasn’t bad in seventies was looking to as foreshadowers of the sound- physics, but I was best in musical language.” He says worlds it was discovering. Bands who were mentioning that he always knew that he would end up in music, Can as a significant influence were at the forefront of that it was the “best language I could work on.” punk and early postpunk. Public Image, Buzzcocks, Can were a ’68 group which meant and still means Cabaret Voltaire, this heat and various others. As if to a lot in Germany. They were small scale in their influ- seal the connection of mutual respect, Jah Wobble, ence, though such influence continues with new listen- emissary from postpunk and Public Image bassist, at ers. Irmin Schmidt once recalled that by the mid-sev- the time, began a series of collaborations with various enties they had reached maybe 40,000 pairs of ears. members of Can, notably Czukay. It continues to this They toured in Germany, France and England. They day, Wobble turns up on a track off Czukay’s current were perhaps particularly popular in France. The band CD release, ‘Moving Pictures’. in its various versions produced a series of remarkable Czukay tells a possibly apocryphal story, when concertos of music, or soundworlds. There is though asked about his place of birth, Danzig, or as it is known much else unreleased. After the departure of their by its Polish name, Gdansk. “I was about five years Japanese singer Kenji Suzuki they regrouped, as initial- when I left. So I was a pretty small child then. But I ly the original core four-piece, before bringing in much remember everything, especially the house I was living of the Traffic rhythm section; Rosko Gee on bass – thus in. When I was four years old I remember the birthday relieving Czukay of his bass playing – and Reebop when I became four years old. On that birthday I went Kwaku Baah on percussion. Czukay, (who by this time with my younger brother to see the trams coming by. I was wearing, as with Japanese etiquette, white gloves wanted it to get out of the rails. I was very successful. It for his musical activities), made a definite sideways was a very triumphant day.” He wheezes with amuse- move into the investigation of playing a new found ment. Czukay was born in 1938. He moved to Germany instrument, the long wave radio. He would pick out of 18 www.fourthdoor.co.uk www.fourthdoor.co.uk 19 MARGINS OF MUSIC 3 MARGINS OF MUSIC 3 the airwaves radio signals, fragments of conversations, Czukay’s music; machines and technology; and his, the only group to emerge into the public consciousness ENTER HARMONIC SUBROUTINE lost music from around the world, oceanic shipping Czukay’s interest in the East. There were all sorts of out of this whole scene, was the hitherto marginal NO communication, and play them into the weave of the other sections I delved into so its a pretty long inter- Kraftwerk, who in that brave new technological decade VERTICAL ∆>7? music. Later this was, he says, how he got the voice for view. I’ve moved around some of the ordering in which seemed much more of the moment, than hippy groups YES his celebrated ‘Persian Love’ piece off the ‘Movies’ he responded to my questions, and eased up the intoning on the cosmos and South American deities. RECYCLE REDUCE INTERVAL album. He was waiting for a vocalist for the piece, as it German in his English (that is not, so to speak). All in Still, Ian McDonald, a leading rock writer in the were, and tuning the radio signals at five in the morn- all, however, there isn’t much editing. mid seventies wrote of the “undeveloped potential YES ∆=7? ing the voice materialised, as if waiting in the air. The history of Can has been recounted any number inherent in the whole German music culture”. What NO The enthusiasm with the radio was perhaps not of times in the music press. These reports often happened? YES “TRY-AGAIN” ∆=6? shared by the rest of the group. In ’77 he was more or describe Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay as the two Today there is something stirring in German music SUBROUTINE NO less asked to leave by members and the band entourage Stockhausen students, Schmidt with a promising in the House, Techno and Ambient fields, particularly YES ∆ after a particularly difficult gig in Zurich, Switzerland, orchestral and compositional career ahead, and Czukay in Frankfurt and Berlin. Maybe for the first time since =5? who were trying to make the band’s music more com- as serious in his involvement in serial music. Schmidt is the seventies, and the Neue Deutsche Welle there’s a liv- YES NO mercially responsive to the times in the hope that they portrayed as bored with the limits of academic mod- ing music scene. Czukay is interested in this develop- ∆=4? could survive as a continuing functioning unit. ernism, and thinking of beginning a group of sorts. ment. His next record, he says could well be a techno YES NO Some time before this, the band, with money from Soon Michael Karoli, at the time a Law student in record.I begin, though, by getting him to talk about ∆=3? a hit single, had invested in a 24 track studio equip- Lausanne, Switzerland, gets a telephone call enquiring Can and their relation to the Studio. NO YES ment, which Czukay maintains today, “poisoned the whether he wants to play guitar in a new project, and ∆=2? group”. Czukay continually refers to machines and Jaki Liebezeit turns up for some unspecified rehearsals. NO YES machinery in terms of sentience and living metaphors. The core is formed. There’s an early member David ∆=1? This is, for anyone versed in the norms of western Johnson who leaves, and quite soon Michael Mooney is NO thought, at times one of the most disturbing , but also discovered. Two albums exist from this time – the tra- THEN ∆ MUST=0 one of the most interesting parts of his viewpoint. It is ditional first release ‘Monster Movie’, and a cassette of partially this viewpoint, if you continue reader, that I their earliest recordings on Can fan Pascal Bussy’s small PARALLEL MOTION? attempt to question him on. scale Tago Mago label, ‘Prehistoric Future’. This latter NO After this there followed a period of withdrawal, contains recordings from the earliest group days of ’68. DOES A VOICE MOVE two years, he says, when he didn’t talk to anybody, only There’s also a film music single called ‘Karma Sutra’.At AS CONTRARY STEP? NO plants and machines. This probably sounds very the end of the year Johnson has departed for the free YES NO strange, and the ‘apparent’ dialogues may seem on the music world. Can began to perform, particularly on the TRITONE IN VII6? shores of subjective reality, and as the music papers Art Circuit, and a repertoire of material begins to form. YES have portrayed him, wholly eccentric, but when I meet Much of this is from improvised and spontaneous ses- him it is a sensitised, aware and reflective man that I am sions – some appears on the 1976 retrospective RETURN TO MAIN ROUTINE interacting with, although maybe at times an occasion- ‘Unlimited Edition’. At the end of 1967 Malcolm ally strange man. Moony left, because of personal difficulties. Six months Who listened to Can at the time the group were later whilst playing in Munich, Kenji ‘Damo’ Suzuki is going? According to a 1979 review of a Can compilation discovered – found singer. So begins nearly four years practically nobody, calling the music an aural of collaboration and stability. blitzkrieg. However Ian McDonald who turned from Whilst staying in Cologne, the local city newspaper Single Vector Part 1: initial sceptic to full blown proselytiser called ‘Future runs a piece on Can.

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