HOLGER CZUKAY

Can we also get hot in the dancing spot?

Donkey's mouth, full of hay...

Holger Czukay - He was there, at the first Can show in Cologne

No he wasn't, Bobby Gillespie was

boat woman song is kicking my ass today my friends

recently garnered copies of Rome Remains Rome and On the Way to the Peak of Normal, which still kick, too.

I know I've said this on noise threads before but

Canaxis / Movies / On The Way To The Peak of Normal / (most of) Der Osten Ist Rot / Rome Remains Rome = absolutely amazing and I come back to them all the time

collaborations Les Vampyrettes, Full Circle, Plight & Premonition = also too good

some good moments on Moving Pictures & Good Morning Story and I love Berlin Techno (the more anonymous the better) so I love the SF section from Clash. you'd better be a pretty big fan if you're curious about the three albums he's put out with U-She / Ursa Major. but he's in the category where his good ones are so good, I can't sell any of it back

Is Canaxis the only thing he's done that's like Canaxis?

Also is that David Sylvian thing up to much?

if you love Canaxis you will love Plight & Premonition (the first one with Sylvian). it's a little more traditionally tonal / ambient, less alien abstract, but it just sets an incredible mood. apart from Canaxis, this is the only thing that's like that record that's as good (side 2 of Good Morning Story has a 22 minute ambient shortwave piece I remember not working as well)

the second one with Sylvian is ok but it's more two seperate pieces, worked better as an LP, one drifty ethno-percussion piece & one weepy guitar-wall piece, heavier on the Sylvian polish than the Czukay strangeness. good though.

If you like Canaxis I recommend Tod Dockstader's 'Aerial 1' & you probably saw this thread

also if you're into 'Boat Woman Song' for the longform world-collage aspect -

John Oswald - WX
Carl Stone - Nyala (4th movement), Attari, 'Cooking Papa' from Kamiya Bar, Al-Noor
Jon Hassell - Vernal Equinox
Stockhausen - Hymnen / Telemusik
Richard Maxfield - Bacchanale (1963)

you really are a god among men I look forward to checking out as many of these as I can get my grubby mitts on

'Movies' is rocking my world...it's all over the place but got a lovely springtime vibe...'Hollywood Symphony' rules...

Thanks for bumping this...did any other ex-Canners have a solo career of note?

I kind of liked Karoli's album (that he did with some supermodel, I think?), but it's plastic as hell and has like, no guitar playing on it.

I have the album by Irmin Schmidt and Kumo called Masters of Confusion that was mostly Schmidt banging on the piano while drum n' bass beats played in the background...the first two tracks were really cool but it gets really boring afterwards.

Never heard anything by Jaki...are those any good??

the Can DVD came with a sort of sampler CD of solo stuff. Pretty good but I didn't really feel the need to go further.
I do like Jaki's stuff with Burnt Friedman though.

Irmin's stuff is pretty good. Not played them in a while but I've got a lot of his albums and I like at least a few things on every one of them. "Toy Planet" I like a lot. "Musk at Dusk" and "Impossible Holidays" have good things on them, very idiosyncratic stuff tho, maybe a bit smooth for some people. Tons of film music, a lot of which is like, uh, film music, but with some very Irminlike songs here and there. I've got the first of Jaki's Phantomband albums, which is dominated by Rosko Gee, which I don't mind because i like Rosko Gee's contributions to Can, not exactly startling however. Never heard the other Phantomband stuff, it's supposed to be a bit edgier.

revive!!

I was just thinking about Holger Czukay. How is he doing, I wonder? I'd like to interview him sometime soon.

Let's get hot. On the dancing...

spot

for the last two years he's been putting out very subtle remixes of track from his solo records as singles. they're all so similar to the originals they almost beg the question 'why', but anything's legal

but this sounds interesting

And the upcoming project will be "Music is a miracle", a 12" promo record from 1971 which only was made for the EMI sales people but became much more than it was initially made for...

http://www.czukay.de/news/index.htm

hi milton!

i watched the can DVD last night for the 5000th time (on a big screen at the MIT media lab...a bunch of us go there at night to play music DVDs on their giant system) and it reminded me that czukay is 73 now, and that michael karoli died almost exactly ten years ago.

Yeah, it's unbelievable really, thinking Czukay is 73 now. Everything about him and his music still gives you this idea that he's 50-something. Equally unbelievable is that Karoli's death was 10 years ago already.

Cool in the pool - one of my all time favourite songs in the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa8RdpYMycs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D-QgbSUslo

^ this insane thing just got reissued

it's like world of echo in hell

strewth, that's wicked, not heard it before

holger + conny from 1980

not sure whose dulcet singing voice that is though

interviewing him this week, anyone have any interesting questions they'd like answered?

that's very kind of you! I don't know if that would be considered an interesting question, but off the top of my head, I'd like to know if the Sylvian/Czukay remasters are planned to come out in the short term. apparently they've been ready for years along with the rest of his '80s catalogue, when SPV, his previous label, abruptly folded.
oh, and if he has some interesting anecdotes about working with Sylvian on those two albums.
thanks!

Is On The Way to the Peak of Normal coming out on cd at all? LOved that lp when I had it. But think I'm only seeing a vinyl & d/ld being advertised

ooh what i wouldn't give for outtakes from that lp; my favorite Czukay. doesn't seem to get much love.

Are there unreleased tracks in the Czukay solo vaults, a la the Can Lost Tapes?

Hard to jam with yourself tbh

Having said that I read something where he said he did a session with Jah Wobble and ended only using Wobble tuning his bass at the start of the session

Les Vampyrettes = fucking wicked, man.

Great questions so far - dunno how many I'll be able to ask but I'll try! Keep 'em coming!

finally bought the Groenland reissue of On The Way To The Peak Of Normal (as a download, from eMusic). Kept having to turn the volume down further and further. Felt like a loudness thing. Luckily, was able to find a blog just now with a rip of the Can Solo Edition CD from ages ago (the one with the two bonus tracks). Like this mastering much more. Sounds much richer when turned up loud but without hurting my ears. Sigh.

Those reissues bug me to no end. Those two tracks aren't bonus tracks -- the new version isn't a complete reissue, it dropped half of side two!

Then there's things like this, compiling two of his albums and replacing half the tracks with alternate mixes that are pretty much objectively less interesting than the originals - http://www.discogs.com/Holger-Czukay-Der-Osten-Ist-Rot-Rome-Remains-Rome/release/5943736

Someone stop him

lol wtf?!? That is nuts

have you heard the groenlands Milton? Do you think they're mastered too hot?

have only listened to 'Osten/Rome' online. I'm curious to hear the new 'Normal' to see if he touched it much.

I should walk it back a bit, the new mixes are not exactly less interesting, they just lack most of the disorienting jump-cut edits that really make the original mixes. I'm guessing as to how the original albums were made, but it sounds like he did several radically different stereo mixes of pieces, and then started splicing between them at perfect moments, sometimes between the same moment on the master, sometimes completely different moments. Pretty common practice even then, though he really emphasized the jump cuts instead of hiding them. These new mixes push up the live instruments, but they also mostly sound splice-free -- it's interesting to hear more of what I assume is the original tapes but if what you loved about the original records was the baffling mixing and sample density, those are not as present on the 'Osten/Rome' reissues

I am (obviously) a pretty big fan of most everything he did from 1979-1986 but you have to track down the original versions

/what I assume are the original tapes

the SPV-Revisited CD of 'Movies' is also a very different mastering job than the original Spoon CD, though it's still the same edit. But I ripped them both to iTunes and I can tell which is which within about 15 seconds just by listening, it's pretty extreme. In that case I find the new master interesting but I would start with the original

Czukay's Spotify catalog right now are the reissues of 'Normal', 'Osten/Rome', a weird remix album misattributed to him that he did a single remix for, and 'La Luna' - yikes

I checked out the Groenland 'Normal' reissue and the second half of the title track is a completely different edit removing Czukay's original vocals in favor of someone whispering 'I like you' over and over for three minutes. It is not as good. The other tracks sound like the original edits to me but definitely got a modern remastering.

I do like the vivid tone colors of that remaster but on headphones it's just too loud

Great Holger cameo at the end of this Eurythmics performance from the OGWT:

https://youtu.be/w2rRLc1Dmv4?t=306

Ha, I was thinking about this clip last week and very nearly went on to Youtube to post it on here.

I've a feeling it didn't sell as well as it could have but the last double 10" thing for "RSD" (Eleven Years Innerspace) is worth checking out. It's a bit of a weird package with more recycled (remixed / edited) stuff but totally worthwhile I reckon. You may think you don't need a six minute edit of Boat Woman Song but actually you do. There's also some bonkers cut-up Can rhythms with odd wailing over the top that sounds like Holger aping Damo.

I need a 6 minute edit of boat woman song!

Those reissues bug me to no end. Those two tracks aren't bonus tracks -- the new version isn't a complete reissue, it dropped half of side two!

Then there's things like this, compiling two of his albums and replacing half the tracks with alternate mixes that are pretty much objectively less interesting than the originals - http://www.discogs.com/Holger-Czukay-Der-Osten-Ist-Rot-Rome-Remains-Rome/release/5943736🔗

Someone stop him

I'm so confused. Is this comp from Virgin in 1987 of Rome/Der Ostenremixes as well? Or is it the original mixes (minus a few tunes)?

http://www.discogs.com/Holger-Czukay-Rome-Remains-Rome-And-Excerpts-From-Der-Osten-Ist-Rot/master/23194

the one you link is the Virgin 1987 CD, the original mixes with a few tracks axed from Der Osten ist Rot (even though both albums would have fit on one disc without a problem)

the one I linked is the bizarro recent Groenland one with radically different mixes.

Thanks for that interview excerpt!

This album is amazing, btw - gorgeous and silly and playful.

On The Way To The Peak of Normal is really slinky if you haven't heard it. Very recommended

so that led me down a rabbit hole of Holger interviews, including one where he's talking about electronic music. he says Can's music was out of fashion for a while because it wasn't "hi-fi", which to me is weird because the records sound amazing. but I suppose that's maybe not what he's talking about.

like Monster Movie *should* sound grungy but it's really crisp somehow. it was 1969 and they were broke, I dunno how they did it. Ege Bamyasi and Future Days sound like something that could have been recorded today.

I assume he means that, prior to 1975, they recorded everything on 4-track.

Having said that I don't really know what's he talking about. I don't know that the circumstances of the recording had anything to do with whether Can were "in fashion" or not - or whether they ever were particularly out of fashion. The post-74 (most hi-fi) version of Can seems like the version that was most out of fashion or favour or whatever.

does he say who they were out of fashion with?

it's at 2:00 here - I guess he says what Can was doing was "unprofessional" and "not accepted"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_s1aMhoMH0

he says they do 'lo fi' recording, but again the actual albums sound really good to me

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