Can - Soundtracks (LP) - Clear Purple Vinyl

Can’s Soundtracks arrived in 1970 as a curious proposition, a set of pieces the band cut for films between gigs and longer studio marathons. On paper it reads like an odds-and-ends stopover between Monster Movie and the full sprawl of Tago Mago. On the turntable it lands as something far more cohesive, a snapshot of a group tightening the screws on its telepathy while shifting from Malcolm Mooney’s fevered mantras to Damo Suzuki’s shapeshifting presence. It is also the first Can LP to feature Suzuki, so you can hear the handover happening in real time.

The centrepiece is Mother Sky, fourteen minutes of disciplined momentum that never peaks too early. Jaki Liebezeit rides a clipped, aerodynamic beat that feels like it could tick for days, Holger Czukay locks a rubbery bassline in its orbit, and Michael Karoli slides between wiry lead figures and a wiry, percussive chop. Irmin Schmidt shades the whole thing with organ that swells, thins, then swells again, like headlights on a wet road. Suzuki murmurs, chants and punctures the trance without ever breaking it. The track famously found life in Jerzy Skolimowski’s 1970 film Deep End, which makes sense; it moves like a camera shot you never want to cut away from.

Side A plays like a tour through different kinds of cinema. Deadlock and its title melody were cut for Roland Klick’s cult western, and you can hear the sand in the gears: a slow, prowling tension, tremolo guitar that nods toward Morricone while staying pure Can, and a pocket that never loosens. Tango Whiskyman does what its title hints at, but with a dark smirk, organ and guitar circling a dance rhythm that keeps threatening to go off its axis. Don’t Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone and Soul Desert arrived as a 1970 single, and they’re a tidy primer on why Suzuki was such a find. He doesn’t overpower the band; he threads himself into the grain of the groove, turning small phrasings and breathy asides into hooks. The arrangements are tough but airy, every instrument sharing space, nothing cluttered.

Then there is She Brings the Rain, the one Mooney vocal here, and a mood all its own. It shuffles along on brushed drums, guitar played with a jazz guitarist’s patience, Czukay’s bass walking in soft shoes. Mooney sings with the kind of unguarded simplicity that Can’s most out-there jams strangely depend on. It is tender without tipping into sap, and it closes the record with a sense of dusk after a bright, relentless day.

Part of the spell is the sound. These pieces were recorded during the Schloss Nörvenich era, when the band set up shop in a drafty castle near Cologne, and you can hear the room in the drums and the way the bass carries. Czukay’s background with Stockhausen wasn’t just a footnote; his edits, splices and looping tricks act like another instrument. Yet nothing feels overcooked. Even when the songs were made to suit a director’s brief, the band’s internal logic wins out. The cues serve the films, but the music never reads as mere underscore.

First German copies came out on Liberty, and the original press has a lively, slightly raw presentation that suits the material. If you’re hunting Can vinyl, Soundtracks is often a smarter buy than chasing the pricier early editions of Tago Mago, and it still gives you the hit of prime Can in wide stereo. Spoon Records has kept the catalogue in good nick as well, so a clean Soundtracks vinyl reissue is an easy recommendation. If you’re browsing a Melbourne record store on a Saturday arvo, you’ll see it pop up fairly often; if you’d rather buy Can records online, there are plenty of copies floating around, and most are pressed well enough to let Liebezeit’s cymbals and Schmidt’s keys breathe. For anyone building a shelf of Can albums on vinyl, this one earns its spot fast. And if you’re shopping within vinyl records Australia circles, it’s a common enough title that you won’t need to sell a kidney for a nice copy.

Soundtracks also clarifies a bit of the Can myth. You can hear what the band sounded like when a brief, specific mood was needed, and it turns out they were no less exploratory, just more concise. That makes it a brilliant entry point for newcomers and a rewarding puzzle piece for long-time heads. Drop the needle anywhere, and the band’s language is fluent: repetition as revelation, rhythm as architecture, melody as a visitor who knows when to leave. Not a leftovers reel, then, but a document of a group making cinema out of their own chemistry.