When the Krautrock revival gained full steam during the 1990s, Can was at the forefront of the movement. Along with Neu! and Faust, Can were from the Motorik School, that of the repetitive groove which captured the hipster's short attention span apparently. Having been a decade ahead of this, my own introduction came via the Berlin School of electronics which lead to a full discovery of Tangerine Dream, which lead to Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, and Guru Guru. So this was my initial idea of Krautrock (a term widely used back then too). So when I first heard Can, I wasn't very impressed to be honest. Monster Movie completely lost me and Soon Over Babaluma was interesting if not very compelling. Tago Mago was just too expensive to experiment with (and yes, we're talking the 1981 reissue double LP which could still be found new then), so I never did hear it during my initial 1980s exploratory phase. When I started to surround myself with like-minded friends, they of course owned it, and my initial reaction was similar - meh. Eventually I secured an early CD pressing as I knew there was too much music here to simply ignore.
Tago Mago is Can's most ambitious work by some margin. The three tracks on Side 1 are what I'd call prototypical Can. Good grooves, Damo's street theater rantings, a lack of melody, and hardly any instrumental prowess. I like it ("...mushroom head...."). I don't love it. 'Halleluwah' is generally regarded as the album's piece-de-resistance, and I'm not arguing that point at all. This is Can at their best, with a hypnotic deep groove and some reasonably toned down trippy instrumentation. I would be willing to state that album #1 here might be Can's finest moment in the studio. To provide context, for my tastes, Can's best music was found later on archival releases like The Peel Sessions and The Lost Tapes. And that's because they do show off the group's inherent instrumental talent, that they seemed shy to demonstrate on record. Now back to Tago Mago. They should have stopped right there. But when does an experimental band know when to quit? They don't, and they really went for broke on album #2. I find both 'Aumgn' and 'Peking O' really hard to get through, even to this day. After some 30 years of familiarity, one cannot accuse me of not giving it a chance. It's just not for me. I'm sure there is a mental state where music like this works, but I don't seem to possess it. Not that I'm alone in my assessment mind you. The album's closer is pleasant, and would have fit nicely with the opening trio of tracks. Overall I find that Tago Mago is something of a mandatory purchase for Krautrock fans, only in that it's highly representative, and certainly enjoyable on the whole. Something akin to climbing the tallest mountain. You feel compelled to do it, but it's not going to be easy.
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