Now You Know: Beyond Jazz Fusion With Ege Bamyasi

We here at Guy.com look at it as our guiding principal to make sure you are on the bleeding edge of what is happening right now. In light of our mission statement, I am here to educate you about some artists and albums that might have escaped your notice. This way, when you are having a party, and you drop some knowledge on your friends, they will say to themselves, “Wow, this guy isn’t such a dull asshole after all!”

Ege Bamyasi – “Can”

Does this situation sound familiar?  You get an album by a band and on the first listen it doesn’t click, so you put it away. You come back to months/years later, and love that shit… That’s totally what happened to me with Can. I’ll totally admit I only first heard about Can in the spectacular LCD Soundsystem breakthrough single “Losing My Edge.” Have a listen…

LCD Soundsystem – “Losing My Edge”

The line, “I was there at the first Can show, in Cologne.” I looked them up, grabbed Ege Bamyasi and gave it a listen, but it just didn’t make it for me. A few weeks ago I picked up Mr. Chop’s new album, Switched On, which is comprised of cover songs of old, rare, oft-sampled funk and out-there shit. Once again, Mr. Chop is working with Malcolm Catto from the Heliocentrics on drums and the album is super heavy. Covered artists, to name a few: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Smith, the JBs, and Can. Their version of “Vitamin C” from Ege Bamyasi is so fantastic I ran back to the original for a re-review.

Great!

First off, this album needs to have its head examined. It’s totally outrageous. You could call it jazz-fusion I guess, but that is a complete disservice — not to imply jazz-fusion is all bad, but this stuff is beyond.

Can – “Vitamin C”

So the album just gets nuttier from here, but in a way that I completely appreciate now. I love the fact that sometimes your mind is just not prepared for certain sounds. And I can also appreciate that most people will think this shit is bonkers, but that’s fine. Not everything is for everybody.

Can – “Pinch”

Can had it together. Basically, they went into the studio and just played, and then they would take it and edit it down into something somewhat manageable. It’s a bold approach, and certainly most bands couldn’t pull that off (Medeski, Martin and Wood pull that off, but they can do anything they set their minds to!) So if you like the above, check them out. I would suggest starting off with Ege Bamyasi. I’ve picked up Monster Movie and Tago Mago, but I am still working on those.