The Psych Ward: Monster Movie by Can
The Psych Ward: Monster Movie by Can
The death of Kenji “Damo” Suzuki on February 9, 2024, is largely unrelated to the album Monster Movie from 1968 – but feels important to recognize in the context of the band’s overall repertoire. Suzuki joined the band two years after the recording of Monster Movie and was a full-fledged member until 1973.
Recorded live by a two-track recorder, the album is as vital for its influence on future music as much as the albums and artists that were influential in its realization. Comprised of merely four songs, the album runs for just under thirty-eight minutes for a total running time. Monster Movie is the second recording the band endeavored to release – the first work declined by all the labels the band submitted it to but eventually released as part of a compilation titled Delay 1968 in 1986.
The opening track, “Father Cannot Yell”, starts with a relentless and percussive organ rattle joined by drums and bass in a furious drone of fuzz-laden guitar. The repeating vocals offer a paradoxical lyric of “Woman screaming ‘I am fertile’ and the father who hasn’t been born yet…” Imagine the stoned after-school bedroom conversations this song inspired.
The second track, “Mary, Mary So Contrary”, brings to mind The Doors song “Love Street” with its lilting guitar. The song also employs the oft-used trope of spoken, well-known childhood verse + slow tempo and fuzz guitar = psychedelic song.
“Outside My Door” is the most traditional orchestration using a consistent 4/4 time signature, harmonica, and repeated vocals backed up with a Farfisa or other period organ. When in doubt, repeating a line seems to be the mantra here.
The final track, “You Doo Right”, is the centerpiece of the album. At just over twenty minutes, the song is epic. Excerpted and edited down from an hours-long live recording, the song features singer Malcolm Mooney narrating the contents of a love letter over the music. With its ebbs and flows and stops and starts, the song is a statement of emotional intent as much as sheer endurance. So powerful is the lyric that Primal Scream used the line “you made a believer out of me” on their song “Movin’ On Up from their 1990 album Screamadelica.
Monster Movie is an obvious progenitor of Kraut rock and other later experimental genres but its influence – and that of Can overall – can be heard in artists like Roxy Music, The Feelies, Spaceman 3, The Happy Mondays, several Manchester bands, and almost anything in what has become known as Math Rock.
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