CAN - SOON OVER BABALUMA @ 50

 

Released in November of 1974, CAN's fifth official studio album (excluding the aborted "Delay 1968" and "Soundtracks" compilation), Soon Over Babaluma, turns half a century old this month. In many ways, the album marks the end of the band's "classic" era, being the first to be recorded without vocalist, Damo Suzuki, and the last to be recorded using a 2 track recorder at their Inner Space studio. Subsequent albums would be created on a 16 channel system, which would drastically impact their compositional process, as they were afforded the luxury of overdubbing. It's something that would move them away from the immediacy of live improvisation, a key component of their early sound.

Even with the group still working within the limitations of 2 track recording, Soon Over Babaluma has a more refined and nuanced sound than their earlier work. For some, it was a softening that was unwelcome, but the album still offers some edge, particularly on the extended side 2 tracks, Chain Reaction & Quantum Physics. The songs on the first side, however, had much more of an accessible pop disposition, with Dizzy Dizzy kicking off the album with a bubbly, perky lightness. With Suzuki gone, vocal duties were taken up by guitarist Michael Karoli and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, with both offering restrained, subdued performances that tended to blend into the music, rather than stand out. The end result garnered some ambivalence from music critics, who were unsure of the group's evolutionary intentions.

Personally, Soon Over Babaluma was my gateway into the band's work. As a rabid PiL fan, beginning in 1980, I'd often heard how CAN were a key inspiration, so they were certainly on the top of my list to investigate at my earliest convenience. However, it was not until July of 1982 that I was afforded the opportunity to finally check them out, when I came across this album in a little record shop in Banff, AB, as my family made their way from Thunder Bay, ON, to relocate in Powell River, BC. As such, it's always going to have a sentimental place in my life, though I might not consider it their greatest work. It's still on the higher end of the group's spectrum, albeit it marks the beginning of the end for the band's glory days as one of the world's most innovative and influential alternative rock bands.