Holger Czukay - 1979 - Movies

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5

This Holger Czukay solo disc does share many attributes with contemporary Can. There is a strong focus on dance rhythms and not so much instrumental experimentation. But where latter day Can could never quite "let it all hang out" so to speak, Movies seems very comfortable in it's campiness. It also provides a fertile field for Czukay to go wild with his innovative sampling techniques. In fact, I'd say the trip-o-meter rating is exclusively based on the sampling as the music itself often straightforward (the long tracks get a little stranger).

Even more than Can, Movies is of a kin with David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. Both place samples over kind of funk/jazz like instrumentals. Byrne and Eno would use samples as the backbone of the song. Czukay doesn't sample to this extreme ("Cool In The Pool" has a distinct non-sampled vocal), but he did manage to do this first, although he rarely seems to get credit for it.

There are only four tracks present. "Cool In The Pool" sounds like a Steely Dan song with a Victorian-era cross dressed on vocal. It's really campy, but fun, and the sampling is really the main event. "Oh Lord, Give Us Some Money" is far more Can-like, featuring Can's signature descending riff. It's 12 minutes long and is far better than the "epics" can was recording at the time. Actually, there is a strong Can presence throughout this album as Leibezeit is playing drums at the top of his game throughout the album, and Karoli and Schmidt each appear on a track.

Side two follows a similar pattern with "Persian Love" once again giving us camp that you'll probably love or hate, and "Hollywood Symphony" outdoing Can's epic tracks of the same era. The latter tracks seems to incorporate a little bit of fusion into its sound, which is a nice touch.

Rather than Can's Saw Delight or Out Of Reach, I would recommend Czukay's Movies. It is after the same sort of sound as latter Can was, but tends to be much more successful, and gives a full view of Czukay's innovations in sampling. Besides, everyone from Can shows up here anyway.

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Holger Czukay - 1979 - Movies

Holger Czukay - 1969 - Canaxis

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5

Although usually cited as a solo album, Canaxis is in fact a collaboration between Can bassist/sound manipulator Holger Czukay and producer/engineer Rolf Dammers. The album credit, is in fact listed as Technical Space Composer's Crew. Although recorded a short time after Can's inception, Canaxis shares little with that band's sound except maybe in their most experimental and freaked out moments.

This disc's foundation is a series of field recordings, mostly from Vietnam. Mistakingly playing some of these recordings together with a completely different music source, Czukay realized the possibilities of found sound manipulation, and began work on this album. This has absolutely nothing to to with rock at all and is more a realization of contemporary avant music theory. If you've got a taste for that sort of thing, you very well may enjoy this.

The album proper comprises of two album side pieces. "Boot Woman Song" rests heavily on samples of Vietnamese women singing. It's very interesting and Czukay weaves in some like instrumentation to flesh everything out. As a warning though, if you find the singing annoying, side one is not going to get better.

I do like side one, but side two's title track is the real gold for me. Starting off similarly to "Boot Woman Song," the tracks fades into some chanting which is like a more mellow version of the Ligeti tracks used in 2001:A Space Odyssey, finally ending with a wall of pure electronic sound. It's very dream-like music, although it does move extremely slowly, so you need to come in with you attention span.

The recent reissue contains two bonus tracks, "Cruise" and "Epilogue." These are relatively short tracks that continue the more electronic sounds of the album. I believe that these recordings are contemporary to the album's recording dates, although my reissue says 1997. It also credits Malcolm Mooney with liner notes that were clearly written by Mr. Czukay, so make what you will.

If Can is your all-time favorite band, you still might hate this. I personally find it to be quite enjoyable and managed to finish "Metroid: Fusion" while playing this one over and over. I can't play too many albums that many times over.

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Holger Czukay - 1969 - Canaxis