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Saturday, December 27, 2025

CAN Free Concert Cologne 1972

Film shot for the occasion of CAN's free concert in their home town of Cologne on February 3rd 1972, attended by over ten thousand. During the event, the multitrack tape recorder meant for the film's audio sync failed, and the band was left with only a highly flawed cassette recording of the concert from the front of stage.

The decision was then made to overdub the tape at Inner Space Studio the following month, and to film the overdubbing as well as CAN in their regular mode of improvisation. Two tracks recorded for the film later ended up on the album Unlimited Edition, titled "I'm Too Leise" and "LH 702 (Nairobi/München).

CAN (stylized in all caps) were a German experimental rock band formed in Cologne in 1968 by Holger Czukay (bass, tape editing), Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar), and Jaki Liebezeit (drums). They featured several vocalists, including American Malcolm Mooney (1968–70) and Japanese Damo Suzuki (1970–73). They have been hailed as pioneers of the German krautrock scene.

The founding members of CAN came from backgrounds in avant-garde music and jazz. They blended elements of psychedelic rock, space rock, funk, samba and musique concrète on influential albums such as Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973). CAN also had commercial success with singles such as "Spoon" (1971) and "I Want More" (1976) reaching national singles charts. Their work has influenced rock, post-punk, indie rock, post-rock and ambient acts.

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