Live in Paris 1973

Can

Released

The previous instalments of Can’s ongoing series of live releases have served up concerts recorded in Brighton and Stuttgart in 1975 and one from Cuxhaven in Saxony in 1976. All three are thrilling documents of the krautrock outliers flexing their improvisational muscle. However, Live In Paris 1973 turns the clock back a few years to capture what many consider to be the group’s greatest line-up at the absolute peak of their powers.

Recorded at L’Olympia in the French capital in May of that year, the concert found Can firing on all cylinders following 1972’s Ege Bamyasi, the late Damo Suzuki nonsensically scatting, screaming and whispering them through an almost superhuman performance. The five pieces here (as before, titled numerically) are astonishingly potent distillations of the points Can could collectively journey to together and — unusual for a band who prided themselves on never playing the same thing twice — you can even make out recognisable traces of songs.

Chris Catchpole

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