Irmin Schmidt himself told me, “I like The Lost Tapes very much because it tells a story, in a way, from beginning to end, over the years, which is very nice. And sometimes it’s very rough, which I quite like.” This is probably the best post-Can Can album, and it’s definitely the longest. I’m not sure I’d change more than two or three songs in the course of all 3 CDs here. Much of it is as strong as anything in the main discography. “Waiting For The Streetcar” is a hardcore tennis match between Jaki and Malcolm, with some wild Schmidt organ. “Evening All Day” is a gorgeous drumless thing with harp and Schmidt noises and all manner of madness. So good. The whole thing works so beautifully, and it’s all on the more noisy and fuzzy side of Can, so you can imagine why it didn’t make the cut on the original albums, but that means that all of these pieces have been searching for each other all this time and now the whole has been restored. The live version of “Mushroom” is a dread-filled creep that has only the faintest relationship to the released version. In a way, the best Can album? This creates such a distinct world for these three hours. The Miles Davis funk of “Barnacles”? The rave-up storm of “Networks of Foam”? If you are a Can fan, and don’t know this, become excited. This is canon.

– Sasha Frere-Jones