Prehistoric Future cover

Prehistoric Future

Can

Released

The band’s first live show, a jammy tangle with lots of flute and tape work from David C. Johnson. The band was working to find a way out of the average rock improvisation but to get there they had to go through all of it first. Liebezeit’s drums would sound good through a geiger counter and he is loud as hell here. Schmidt destroys a piano during the show, allegedly, though I can’t hear it. The tapes come back, strong, in 1977, when Czukay makes that his main job. The flute doesn’t come back, and sometimes it sounds so right here that I wish it would.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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