CYCLOPEAN EP

Mute records, 11th February 2013

Can’s legacy has never felt more apparent than now, and Cyclopean brings together two giants from this legendary band, Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt alongside long time collaborators Jono Podmore (Kumo / Metamono) and musician and producer Burnt Friedman.

Listen to CYCLOPEAN “Fingers”

As you might expect from the line-up, the four tracks are profoundly original and bursting with imagination. The title provides a metaphor for the music: Cyclopean forms are beautiful, massive and intriguing structures that interlock, intersect and connect seemingly contradictory components. Heavy, yet light, powerful, subtle, intriguing and playful. There’s also a flavour of the ancient in this music – an artefact from a sophisticated pre-culture perhaps. Extraordinary instrumentation – rubber band guitar, theremin, prepared piano – is unified through the monumental and unique drum patterns, as the characters of the four players are at once individually unmistakably and irrevocably intertwined.

The release of the Can album The Lost Tapes this year has brought a wealth of new recognition and plaudits to the legendary band, and as befits members of a band who constantly challenge, innovate and inspire, an entirely new project was born when Friedman, Liebezeit, Podmore and Schmidt got together at Studio Les Rossignols, France, in May 2011.