Out of Reach
Studio album by
Can
ReleasedJuly 1978
RecordedOctober 1977
Genre
Length35:19
LabelHarvest
ProducerCan
Can chronology
Saw Delight
(1977)		 Out of Reach
(1978)		 Can
(1979)

Out of Reach is the ninth studio album by the German krautrock band Can, released as an LP in 1978 on Harvest Records.[1] It is their tenth official studio album, discounting compilations such as Unlimited Edition.

Background and recording

Founding bassist and producer Holger Czukay left the band before the recording sessions for Out of Reach.[1] As a partial result of Czukay's departure, bassist Rosko Gee and percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah are said to dominate the group's sound on this album. Drummer Jaki Liebezeit was losing interest in the band at the time, leaving most of the percussion duties to Baah.[1] Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt refused to play on "Give Me No 'Roses'", so Gee and Baah played the keyboards on that track. However, the album's guitar solos from Michael Karoli are a link to the older Can sound.

Music

Rosko Gee performs vocals on "Pauper's Daughter and I" (quoting the "Jack and Jill" nursery rhyme) and "Give Me No 'Roses'", and wrote these two tracks.[1] The five other songs ("Serpentine", "November", "Seven Days Awake", "Like INOBE GOD" and "One More Day") are instrumental. A simpler version of "November" was called "Mighty Girl" in the 1975 session for BBC's John Peel Show.

Release

Out of Reach has variously been reissued as a double CD with Can's 1979 release Can (also known as Inner Space after the band's recording studio)[2] and on its own in several single CD versions, e.g. on MagMid (TKO Magnum Music) in the United Kingdom,[3] but was more difficult to find than other Can albums.[1] Being the only Can album that features no input from Holger Czukay (its followup Can had some editing by Czukay[4]), it was disowned by the band for many years (hence its rather haphazard reissue history) and was not listed as part of their discography on their official website.[5] It was not issued either as part of Spoon Records' first CD reissues of most of their albums in 1989, nor in a remastered Super Audio CD edition in 2006, unlike all the other Can studio albums.[6]

It was finally officially re-issued by Spoon Records, in CD, vinyl and digital formats, on 18 August 2014.[7]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[8]
Pitchfork3.7/10[9]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[10]

Allmusic's retrospective review of Out of Reach praised Gee's bass playing for creating a jazz sound, but also referred to "Pauper's Daughter and I" (which they erroneously referred to as "The Pauper's Daughter") and "Like Inobe God" as Can's two worst recordings.[1] In an overview of Can's career, journalist Andy Gill opined that Gee and Baah "seemed to impose too strict a sense of rhythm on Can's once free-flowing music, which was diluted with insipid reggae riffs." He called Out of Reach "a poor record".[11]

Track listing

All songs written by Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt, Rosko Gee, and Reebop Kwaku Baah, except where noted.

Side one
  1. Serpentine - 4:03
  2. Pauper's Daughter and I (Gee) - 5:57
  3. November - 7:37
Side two
  1. Seven Days Awake - 5:12
  2. Give Me No 'Roses' (Gee) - 5:21
  3. Like Inobe God - 5:51[lower-alpha 1]
  4. One More Day - 1:37

Total length - 35:19

Personnel

Musicians

According to the liner notes:

Can

Other personnel

  • René Tinner - recording engineer
  • Conny Plank - mixing
  • Hildegard Schmidt - manager
  • A. Backhausen - photography, cover design

Notes

  1. ↑ 6:18 on remastered edition.

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mason, Stewart. "Can: Out of Reach" at AllMusic. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  2. ↑ "Can & Out of Reach" at AllMusic. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
  3. ↑ Channel 4 SlashMusic Archived January 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ "Can". Can Releases. Spoon Records. Archived from the original on 2007-01-01. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
  5. ↑ "Can Releases". Discography. Spoon Records. Archived from the original on 2007-02-27. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
  6. ↑ "Can ‒ Remastered!!!". News. Spoon Records. July 2005. Archived from the original on 1 December 2005.
  7. ↑ "MUTE • Can • Release all their studio albums individually on vinyl – including Out Of Reach, available for the first time since 1978 (CD/LP/Digital)". Mute.com. 18 June 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  8. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). "Can". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
  9. ↑ Richardson, Mark (11 August 2003). "Can: Out of Reach". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
  10. ↑ Nathan Brackett; Christian David Hoard (2004). The new Rolling Stone album guide. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8.
  11. ↑ Gill, Andy (April 1997). "Can". Mojo. London: EMAP Performance. ISSN 1351-0193. Archived from the original on 5 May 1999.
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