This album changed my life: Can – Tago Mago (1971)

This album was made in a time in which huge creative leaps were made in music, and a time which inspired and taught myself to approach sound creation in any non-conventional manner available. Tago Mago was made by a band that incorporated a lot of influences and was an attempt to produce something that spoke to one’s “inner space”, as the band referred to it. This internalising quality is for me what makes the album so captivating.

Jaki Liebezeit’s incomparable drums and Michael Karoli’s shrieking guitar embody this unrelenting crude energy. Irmin Schmidt’s keyboards have an ethereal refrain while Damo Suzuki’s vocals provide a real sense of intimacy and nearly unintelligible clarity. Finally, Holger Czukay’s use of the studio as an instrument was groundbreaking.

This album’s discovery was a revelation for me. Whenever I feel stunted creatively, this intensely cerebral and organic album always feels like an electrical injection that gets me scouring to create something exciting. This is the first album that I put on whenever I’ve been away from music for a while, and it always takes me right back to a feeling of timeless creation.

The Cyclist's new album Sapa Inca Delirium is out now. https://hypercolour-records.bandcamp.com/album/sapa-inca-delirium