Tago Mago

Tago Mago is the second studio album by the German krautrock band Can, originally released as a double LP in August 1971 on United Artists Records. It was the band's first full studio album to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki after the departure of Malcolm Mooney the year prior, though Suzuki had been featured on most tracks on the 1970 compilation album Soundtracks. Recorded at Schloss Nörvenich, a medieval castle near Cologne, the album features long-form experimental tracks blending rock and jazz improvisation, funk rhythms, and musique concrète tape editing techniques.

Tago Mago has been described as Can's best and most extreme record in sound and structure. The album has received widespread critical acclaim and is cited as an influence by various artists. Ned Raggett of AllMusic called it "not merely one of the best Krautrock albums of all time, but one of the best albums ever, period."

Recording and production
After Malcolm Mooney left Can in 1970, the band was left without a vocalist. Bassist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit later saw Kenji "Damo" Suzuki busking outside a cafe in Munich, and invited him to join the band. Suzuki performed with the band at the Blow Up Club that evening, and subsequently became a full member of the group.

Tago Mago was recorded by Czukay at Schloss Nörvenich, a medieval castle in Nörvenich, North Rhine-Westphalia, between November 1970 and February 1971. Early in 1968, the band had been invited to stay rent-free at the castle for one year by art collector Christoph Vohwinkel, who had rented it with the idea of transforming it into an art center.

Recording took three months to complete, with sessions often lasting up to 16 hours a day. Czukay would edit the band's long, disorganized jams into structured songs. He used only two two-track tape recorders to capture the sessions. Because of the limits of two-track recording, the group favored recording in the castle's entrance hall to take advantage of its natural reverberation. Czukay limited the band to three microphones, which were shared between Suzuki and Liebezeit and carefully placed to optimize their response. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt experimented with oscillators in place of typical synthesizers on "Aumgn."

Tago Mago was the first Can album to contain "in-between" recordings, for which Czukay secretly recorded the musicians jamming during pre-production sessions. He also captured in-between recordings of the shouts of a child who mistakenly entered the room during recording, as well as the howling of Vohwinkel's dog.

According to Czukay, the album was named after Illa de Tagomago, an islet near Ibiza in the Balearic archipelago, at Liebezeit's suggestion.

Tago Mago was originally released in Germany in August 1971 by United Artists Records. The British release, with different artwork, followed in February 1972.

Music
Tago Mago saw Can changing to a jazzier and more experimental sound than with 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 former singer Mooney. Can took sonic inspiration from sources including jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and from electronic avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen. The album was also inspired by English occultist Aleister Crowley; it is named for Illa de Tagomago, an island that features in the Crowley legend, and the track "Aumgn" is named for Crowley's interpretation of the Hindu mantra syllable Om. In 2008, Czukay described the album as "an attempt in achieving a mystery musical world from light to darkness and return." The group has referred to the album as their "magic record," and the music has been described as having an "air of mystery and forbidden secrets."

Tago Mago is a double album, with the first LP more conventional and structured and the second more experimental. Roni Sarig, author of The Secret History of Rock, called the second LP "as close as [the group] ever got to avant-garde noise music." Featuring Czukay's tape and radio experiments, the tracks "Aumgn" and "Peking O" have led music critics to call Tago Mago the group's "most extreme record in terms of sound and structure." "Peking O" also makes use of an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, an early drum machine, combined with acoustic drumming. "Aumgn" features keyboardist Irmin Schmidt chanting rather than Suzuki's vocals. The closing track, "Bring Me Coffee or Tea," was described by Raggett as a "fine, fun little coda to a landmark record."

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

Reception and legacy
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." Many critics, particularly in the United Kingdom, were eager to praise the album, and by the end of 1971 Can had played their first show in the country.

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." Dummy called it "a genre-defining work of psychedelic, experimental rock music." Melody Maker critic Simon Reynolds described it as "shamanic avant-funk."

Influence
Various artists have cited Tago Mago as an influence on their work. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. called it "stunning" in his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. Bobby Gillespie of the Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream said of the album: "The music was like nothing I'd ever heard before, not American, not rock & roll but mysterious and European." Mark Hollis of Talk Talk called Tago Mago "an extremely important album" and an inspiration for Talk Talk's 1991 album Laughing Stock. Marc Bolan of T. Rex listed Suzuki's freeform lyricism as an inspiration. Journalist Nick Kent likened the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees on their debut album The Scream to the "ingenuity of Tago Mago", and the band's co-founder, bassist Steven Severin, has expressed admiration for the album. Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke of Radiohead have both cited the album as an early influence.

Several artists have covered songs from Tago Mago or recorded songs based on those from the album. The Flaming Lips' song "Take Meta Mars", from their 1990 album In a Priest Driven Ambulance, began as an attempt to cover "Mushroom"; however, as the band members had only heard "Mushroom" once and did not possess a copy of it, "Take Meta Mars" is only similar-sounding and not a proper cover. The Jesus and Mary Chain have covered "Mushroom" live, and included a live version on the compilation Barbed Wire Kisses. The Fall recorded "I Am Damo Suzuki", based on the Tago Mago track "Oh Yeah", for their 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace. Swedish band Komeda included a cover of "Mushroom" on their 1998 single "It's Alright Baby". Remixes of several Tago Mago tracks by various artists are included on the 1997 Can remix album Sacrilege.

Accolades
Tago Mago is listed in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, which states: "Even after 30 years Tago Mago sounds refreshingly contemporary and gloriously extreme."

Personnel

 * Damo Suzuki – vocals
 * Holger Czukay – bass guitar, engineering, editing
 * Michael Karoli – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, violin
 * Jaki Liebezeit – drums, double bass, piano
 * Irmin Schmidt – Farfisa organ and electric piano, electronics, vocals (5)

Production

 * U. Eichberger – original artwork & design
 * Andreas Torkler – design (2004 rerelease)