Oh yeah, lovers of legendary Krautrockers CAN were hoping for this one. The amazing treasure trove of previously-unreleased delights known as The Lost Tapes was released on CD and digital this year by MUTE/Spoon records, but most CAN fans were hoping for a proper vinyl release. Because of the overwhelming demand, The Lost Tapes will be released as a 5 LP box set on 180g vinyl on December 4th.
“The Lost Tapes was curated by Irmin Schmidt and Daniel Miller, compiled by Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore and edited by Jono Podmore. The vinyl issue of The Lost Tapes will come with a 24” square poster and a 28 page booklet with sleeve notes by Irmin Schmidt and Ian Harrison.
Lost Tapes were discovered when the legendary CAN studio in Weilerswist was sold to the German Rock N Pop Museum. The new owners sentimentally preserved everything, including the army mattresses that covered the walls for sound protection, and relocated it to Gronau.
Whilst dismantling the studio, master tapes were found and stored in the Spoon archive. With barely legible labeling, no one was sure what was on these until Irmin Schmidt and long time collaborator Jono Podmore started to go through over fifty hours of music.
What they found was years of archived material–not outtakes, but rather tracks which had been shelved for a variety of reasons – soundtracks to films that were never released and tracks that didn’t make it onto the final versions of albums due to space.
Irmin Schmidt explains “Obviously the tapes weren’t really lost, but were left in the cupboards of the studio archives for so long everybody just forgot about them. Everybody except Hildegard, who watches over CAN and its work like the dragon over the gold of the Nibelungen and doesn’t allow forgetting.”
The final cut of tracks, dating from 1968-1977, features studio material recorded at Schloss Nörvenich and CAN Studio, Weilerswist with the CAN line up of Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitars, Jaki Liebezeit on drums, and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards, and on most tracks, vocals from Malcolm Mooney or Damo Suzuki.”
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