Out of Reach (album)

Context

The band's previous album Saw Delight was the first to include former Traffic members Rosko Gee and Rebop Kwaku Baah. Founding bassist and producer Holger Czukay was reduced to the position of making electronic sounds as Gee took over the bass duties. Czukay left the band during the recording sessions for what was to become Out of Reach.

Style

As a partial result of Czukay's departure, the new members are said to dominate the group's sound on this album (or "to impose too strict a sense of rhythm on Can's once free-flowing music", according to an interview). Critically acclaimed drummer Jaki Liebezeit's beats are greatly reduced in their power in relation to Baah's percussion. However, the album's strong guitar solos from Michael Karoli are a link to the older Can sound, and have drawn comparisons to those of Carlos Santana. Gee has also been praised as creating a jazz sound, but equally Out of Reach has been criticized for delving into a disco style.

Music

Rosko Gee takes lead vocals on "Pauper's Daughter and I" (quoting the "Jack and Jill" nursery rhyme) and "Give Me No 'Roses'", and is credited with writing these two tracks, although according to a 1997 interview with the band in Mojo magazine, this lack of collaboration with the rest of the group was a sign that the band was about to collapse. Rebop sings on the track "Like INOBE GOD", which has been called Can's worst-ever recorded piece.

The four other songs ("Serpentine", "November", "Seven Days Awake" and "One More Day") are instrumental.

Reissued versions

Out of Reach has been reissued along with Can's 1979 self-titled release Can (which is also known as Inner Space, named after the band's recording studio). Various other reissued versions of this album do exist on CD, such as the issue of Out of Reach (without Can) on MagMid (TKO Magnum Music) in the United Kingdom, although it is considerably more difficult to find than other Can albums in general. However, this album, being the only Can album that features no input from Holger Czukay (as its 1979 followup Can had some editing by Czukay), has been disowned by the band in recent years as it is not listed as part of Can's discography on their official website, and was not remastered on CD in the 1990s, nor was it reissued on Super Audio CD in the mid-2000s as all the other Can studio albums were. In latest Can releases on Spoon records the album has been included in remastered cd release list with code CDSPOON 51.

The album was officially re-issued, in CD, vinyl and digital formats, on 18 August 2014.

Musicians

According to the liner notes:

Other personnel