Can DVD Mute Records/Spoon Records DVD (2003) $49.98 Available at Amazon

Disc One kicks off with Peter Przygodda's celebrated film Can-Free Concert, which documents a 1972 performance at Cologne's Sporthalle. The camera is often lingering and static, the concert footage is punctuated by all manner of intrusive editing techniques (flitting back-and-forth between live material, in-studio tinkering and seemingly-random art stills), and combined with an over-emphasis on facial stills, it's all rather aloof and curiously of its time. While the film techniques mirror Can's art-schooled aesthetic, too often Przygodda's filmic pretensions make the band seem inert, inhuman, even aimless, with the concert itself presented almost as an afterthought. The sound quality, too, is often appalling, not least on "Halleluwah" or the opening "Spoon", where the relentlessly bass-heavy distortion subsumes almost every compelling nuance of Can's musicality. As such, Can-Free Concert makes for a disjointed and jarring viewing/listening experience, and though there's everything to suggest that that's the point, the film's shortcomings often make for a frankly arduous haul.

When the film serves its purpose and focuses on Can as a stellar live act, it's riveting and electrifying stuff -- a performance defined as much by the obvious disparity of these five creative souls as by the interlocking union generated by the primal howl of their instruments. Damo Suzuki bobs, bounces, and flails like a man posessed. Bassist Holger Czukay exudes a pensive, four-stringed cool. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt's mischievous grin is a definite signifier of his boundless creativity. Guitarist Michael Karoli barely moves anything but his wrist, while Jaki Liebezeit is little more than a blurred pair of hands pummelling the skins with typically restless, relentless precision. In short, these people are music incarnate.

Inexplicably (though perhaps to make up for Przygodda's filmic inertia), the set is punctuated by the presence of a juggler, who flings around umbrellas, apples and handkerchiefs, as well as a gymnastics team who clamber atop one another, forming a skewhiff human pyramid-of-sorts. Even an elderly gent turns up to demonstrate how to make theremin noises with a bowed saw. Moments such as these give the Can performance a curiously circus-like aura, but offer only brief and irreverent distraction from Przygodda's filmic inertia. Free Concert's most winning moment of audio/visual synthesis arrives in the form of the compelling, downright arresting studio jam of "Bring Me Coffee Or Tea". Here, everything you'd ever need to know about Can the potent live band, Can the mystic musicological pot pourri, or Can the collective of vibe-harnessing intelli-misfits... every single component of what makes Can great seems imprinted on the face of Damo Suzuki, who appears utterly submerged in a deep, otherly contemplation throughout.

Can Notes, also Przygodda's work, is a documentary compiling footage shot from the release of Can's 1997 remix project, Sacrilege, up to 2003. In between showbiz parties, photo shoots and an exhaustive wealth of phone and radio interviews, there's footage of the members working on various post-Can solo projects and offshoots. In addition to Jaki Liebezeit's stint in the electronic collective Clubs Of Chaos, Irmin Schmidt's work on the surrealist opera Gormenghast finds him fusing orchestral composition with electronics, while Holger Czukay's work with designer/painter/singer U-She is introduced via a truly frightening live cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning". It's no coincidence that much (if not all) of the musicians' post-Can work has been conducted beneath and within the wider glare of electronic culture. After all, weren't Can fascinated by the limitless possibilities of studio trickery and sound manipulation?

The individual interviews with the remaining members (Michael Karoli apparently "sends his love") are fascinating, delving into each musician's philosophy of music-making with a relaxed incisiveness. Gradually, however, the questions descend into bizarre and irreverent banality ("What is your favourite word?... What's your least favourite word? Do you have a favourite saying?"), with Czukay's increasingly riled and baffled responses making for one of the DVD's most hilarious highlights: "I hate these questions...", he exclaims, "but please continue if you want to make me angry!" What best emerges from Can Notes is a sympathetic and human portrait of a band composed of disparate and fascinating individuals, aligned only by their shared belief that little outside of music-making matters. Whether it's their indifference towards promotion and showbusiness glare, their staunch and unflinching commitment to their art ("I hate listening to music!", says Czukay, "it's work!"), or the remarkably unshowy intelligence on display, Can Notes is a fascinating document that carefully unfurls the band's mystique with the buoyant, casual grace of portraiture.

As if Can Notes weren't enough, the second disc features an extensive documentary that culls a wealth of archive footage from television appearances, interviews, performances, and promos conducted throughout the group's career. Among the best of these are a savage and restless performance of "Vernal Equinox" filmed for the BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test show, a breathy, near-motionless take of "Paperhouse" for the German network WDR, and a truly dazzling in-studio jam of "Dizzy Dizzy". Best of all are two utterly surreal performances of their disco hit "I Want More" -- one for a German comedy show, the other for the BBC's Top Of The Pops. These moments are made surreal by their juxtaposition; following a frenzy of elongated musings on the nature of their music, and many many moments of avant-garde tinkering, these performances show Can in the unlikely context of one-hit wonders. The listless gyrating of the TOTP audience, along with Holger Czukay frugging beside a bevvy of blonde studio-dancer bimbettes (not to mention the band's laughably Genesis-like dancing in the video for the Westbam remix), are pretty much worth the DVD's asking price alone. While this documentary goes a long way in informing us of the band's contribution to, and influence upon, all manner of subcultural musical movements, by far its most amusing revelation is that their sole hit "I Want More", both in original and remixed form, amounts to Can's defining foray into uncle-at-a-wedding dance music.

Of the DVD's perfunctory features, Brian Eno contributes a daftly misjudged tribute film (a waste of 60 or so seconds) in which he assumes various jump-cut disguises simply to ponder the band's importance. There's also a rather bizarre clip in which the surviving members are presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the German Echo Awards by Herbert Gronemeyer and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. If you're of the cynical peruasion that awards ceremonies are solipsistic back-pats beneath the apathetic and prestige-hungry gaze of the "industry", then John Frusciante's "moving" (but really rather terrified-looking) eulogy of Michael Karoli's contribution to guitar-playing is unlikely to convince you otherwise. Flipping back to Disc One, however, yields a bunch of unavailing and desultory remixes of tunes from Can's back catalogue, the inclusion of which serves two specific purposes. First, they allow a somewhat needless spanking of the DVD format's surround-sound / Dolby Digital 5.1 audio capabilities, and second, to remind us that Can are still very much the techno-savvy, forward-thinking motherfuckers that they always were. In either case, do we really need any of this?

And so the third and final disc brings the Can story bang up-to-date with an audio-CD compilation of the core members' numerous solo ventures, kicking off with three cuts from Irmin Schmidt's work with Liverpool-born DJ Kumo. Defiantly techno-centric, yet compelled by the same free-associative balance of rhythm and melody that once propelled Schmidt and his former band into uncharted territories, "Goatfooted Balloonman" wouldn't sound out of place at a drum'n'bass mash-up, while "Las Plumas Del Búho" welds such a high, airy ambience to thudding, accelerating breakbeats that it could almost be a piano recital grafted by Squarepusher. Next up is "Rhein Rauf", a Liebezeit collaboration with Burnt Friedman. Here, a swinging, lacksadaisical beat is complemented by buzzing electronics, vibraphone, and contorted guitar sounds, recalling the work of To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and even Tortoise, but it's Liebezeit's tune -- his unilaterally minimalist groove seems just as striking (if not more so) as the accompanying jazz-sonic maelstrom. Three inclusions from Liebezeit's Drums Off Chaos project comprise little more than polyrhythmic clatters of percussion, yet the result amounts to some explosively cacophonous, hitherto-unexplored branch of tribalist dance music.

Four Holger Czukay inclusions -- all collaborations with the sultry, diva-esque U-She -- are mostly fascinating. "Solitary Life" is an Eno-esque ambient dirge, "Time & Tide" presents U-She singing in a deadpan, Nico-like dirge against a dissonant drone of synth, strings and other seemingly-random bursts of instrumentation, while Nico comparisons are compounded with the unwelcome reappearance of that Velvet Underground cover. Meanwhile, the Sofortkontakt inclusions (with Michael Karoli) largely amount to bruising, polyrhythmic and elongated avant-rock jams which constantly threaten to bypass intricacy, subtlety and ability into the realm of guitar-wank. "Lumpy Todda" is fascinating - a wriggling, writhing piece that equates with the most engaging in hyper-sentient post-rock polyrhythms, whereas "Pounding Venus" is a bloated, tiresome, dirge of a drone.

There are omissions -- the vocalists who lent their voices to some of Can's best-loved work, namely Michael Mooney and Damo Suzuki, are unjustly glossed over throughout. Why is there no footage of Damo Suzuki's Network, for example? Or Malcolm Mooney's Twisted Nerve collaborations? Or even any mention of Rosko Gee, David Gilmour or Can's bustling array of collaborators? And where are the promos for "Mushroom" or "Oh Yeah" that were later submitted to MTV as music videos? Also, given the vastness of the Can archives, was there no room on the audio disc for some unreleased material?

Still, with this much material to sift through, there's little cause for complaint. Ultimately, the Can DVD works as a tidy overview of the band in both its past and present incarnations, and given each of the members' desire to chart hitherto unexplored and far-out musical territories, the band and their music will remain fresh, vital and inspiring indefinitely. As long as people feel a need to innovate, the contents of this DVD shall remain a fine testament to (and document of) the raw, unfettered, and reckless spirit of necessary experimentalism.

-- Allan Harrison