Tago Mago

After Malcolm Mooney left Can in 1970 the band was left without a vocalist.[8] Bassist Holger Czukay happened to meet Kenji "Damo" Suzuki when the latter was busking outside a cafe in Munich.[9] He introduced himself as a member of an experimental rock band and invited Suzuki to join them.[10] That evening, Suzuki performed with the band at the "Blow Up Club" and subsequently became a member of Can.[11]

Tago Mago was recorded in 1971 by Czukay in Schloss Nörvenich, a castle near Cologne.[12] Early in 1968 the band had been invited to stay there for a year without paying rent by the art collector Christoph Vohwinkel, who had rented the castle with the idea of transforming it into an art centre.[13]

Recording took three months to complete,[14] with sessions often lasting up to sixteen hours a day.[15] Czukay would edit these long, disorganized jams into structured songs.[16] Czukay used only two two-track tape recorders to capture the sessions.[15] Because of the limits of two-track recording the group favoured the castle's high-ceilinged entrance hall, an architectural reverb chamber, using the natural acoustics and placing the microphones optimally relative to their instruments.[17] Due to the intense reverberation, Czukay took advantage of the sonic bleed and limited the band to three microphones, shared between vocalist Damo Suzuki and drummer Jaki Liebezeit.[15] Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt experimented with sine-wave generators and oscillators in place of typical synthesizers on "Aumgn".[15]

This was the first of Can's albums to be made from not only regularly recorded music, but combined "in-between-recordings", where Czukay secretly recorded the musicians jamming during pre-production sessions.[10] Additionally, Czukay captured in-between-recordings of the shouts of a child who mistakenly burst into the room during recording, as well as the howling from a dog belonging to Vohwinkel.[15]

According to Czukay, the album was named after Illa de Tagomago, an island off the east coast of Ibiza.[18]

It was originally released as a double LP in 1971 by United Artists Records.

Schloss Nörvenich, where Tago Mago was recorded

Julian Cope wrote in Krautrocksampler that Tago Mago "sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after", and described the lyrics as delving "below into the Unconscious".[14] Dummy called it "a genre-defining work of psychedelic, experimental rock music."[3] Critic Simon Reynolds described the record's sound as "shamanic avant-funk."[2] Tago Mago finds Can changing to a jazzier and more experimental sound than previous recordings, with longer instrumental interludes and fewer vocals; this shift was caused by the dramatic difference between Suzuki and the band's more dominant ex-singer Mooney.[19] On the album, Can took sonic inspiration from sources as diverse as jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and from electronic avant-garde music.[20] The album was also inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley, which is reflected through the dark sound of the album as well as being named after Illa de Tagomago, an island which features in the Crowley legend.[4] Czukay reflects that the album was "an attempt in achieving a mystery musical world from light to darkness and return".[10] The group has referred to the album as their "magic record".[4] The tracks have been described as having an "air of mystery and forbidden secrets".[9] Tago Mago is divided into two LPs, the first of which is more conventional and structured and the second more experimental and free-form.[21]

"Paperhouse", the opening track, is one of the shorter songs on the album. Allmusic critic Ned Raggett depicted the song as "beginning with a low-key chime and beat, before amping up into a rumbling roll in the midsection, then calming down again before one last blast."[1] "Mushroom" is the following track, which Leone noted as having a darker sound than the previous song. "Oh Yeah" and "Halleluhwah" contain the elements that have been referred to as Can's "trademark" sound: "Damo Suzuki's vocals, which shift from soft mumbles to aggressive outbursts without warning; Jaki Liebezeit's manic drumming; Holger Czukay's production manipulations (e.g. the backwards vocals and opening sound effects on 'Oh Yeah')."[22] Both "Oh Yeah" and "Halleluhwah" use repetitive grooves.[23]

The second LP features Can's more avant-garde efforts, with Roni Sarig, author of The Secret History of Rock calling it "as close as it ever got to avant-garde noise music."[6] Featuring Holger Czukay’s tape and radio experiments, the tracks "Aumgn" and "Peking O" have led music critics to write that Tago Mago is Can's "most extreme record in terms of sound and structure."[6] "Peking O" made early use of a drum machine, an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, combined with acoustic drumming.[24] "Aumgn" features keyboardist Irmin Schmidt chanting rather than Suzuki's vocals.[19] The closing track, "Bring Me Coffee or Tea", was described by Raggett as a "coda to a landmark record."[1]

The side-long track "Halleluhwah" was shortened from 18½ to 3½ minutes for the B-side of the single "Turtles Have Short Legs", a novelty song recorded during the Tago Mago sessions and released by Liberty Records in 1971.[25] A different, 5½-minute shortened version of "Halleluhwah" would later appear on the compilation Cannibalism in 1978 while the single's A-side remained out-of-print until its inclusion on 1992's Cannibalism 2.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	99/100[7]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Drowned in Sound	10/10[26]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[27]
Filter	95%[7]
Pitchfork	9.3/10 (2004)[28] 10/10 (2011; 40th Anniversary Edition)[29]
Record Collector	[30]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[31]
Stylus	B[32]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[33]
Uncut	[34]

Tago Mago has been critically acclaimed and is credited with pioneering various modern musical styles. Raggett called Tago Mago a "rarity of the early '70s, a double album without a wasted note".[1] Many critics, particularly in the UK,[35] were eager to praise the album, and by the end of 1971 Can played their first show in the UK.[12]

All tracks are written by Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt and Damo Suzuki.

• Damo Suzuki – vocals
• Holger Czukay – bass, engineering, editing
• Michael Karoli – guitar, violin
• Jaki Liebezeit – drums, double bass, piano
• Irmin Schmidt – organ, electric piano, oscillators; vocals on "Aumgn"

• Cope, Julian (1995). Krautrocksampler. Head Heritage. ISBN 0-9526719-1-3.
• Warner, Alan (2015). Tago Mago: Permission to Dream. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-6289-2108-3. ePDF and ePub editions are also available.

• Official website
• Tago Mago at MusicBrainz
• Tago Mago (LP) at Discogs
• Tago Mago (Remastered SACD) at Discogs