Issue 77

We're heading for the dark side of the krautrock kaleidoscope with this month's Electronic Sound cover stars, the inimitable Can. We've a limited edition purple vinyl seven-inch featuring an excerpt from the band's stunning new live album to accompany the magazine too.

Prompted by the release of 'Live In Stuttgart 1975', the first in a series of archive Can gig recordings, we speak to Irmin Schmidt about the band he created with Michael Karoli, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit towards the end of the 1960s. As we try to deconstruct their wholly unique brand of sonic voodoo, Schmidt reveals the inner workings of Can, together with his own memories of their powerful live performances. "We were constantly inventing collectively," he says. "We came onstage and we didn’t have a plan. We just started. What we did was always a reaction to the whole environment – to the sound, to the acoustics, to the crowd, to our mood, and to the moment."

Our other interviews this month include Gary Numan, who discusses the fear of death, the paranoia of parenting, and a planet that may see humanity as a virus – which also happens to be the theme of his forthcoming album, 'Intruder'. Elsewhere in the magazine, Laurie Anderson talks about the making of her 1981 classic ‘O Superman’, Der Plan mull the idea of replacing themselves with robots, and we examine the work of the much-missed starfighter Robert Calvert. And if all that's not enough for you, we also have Gruff Rhys, Tim Booth, For Those I Love, Roddy Woomble and more and more and more and more... 

To accompany the magazine, we have a limited edition purple vinyl seven-inch illustrating the two sides of Can – the touring spontaneous composition ensemble and the studio laboratory technicians. The A-side is an excerpt of the nine-minute 'Stuttgart 75 Fünf' from their new live album, ‘Live In Stuttgart 1975’, on which you can detect elements of the band's seminal track, 'Vernal Equinox'. This is not a live replication of the studio recording, but a totally fresh composition that forms part of a wider piece. The flip is an edit of the original version of ‘Vernal Equinox’ and you can compare and contrast these two fantastic tracks as you turn your purple disc over.

As with all of our seven-inch releases, this record is strictly limited and is only available to readers of Electronic Sound, so make sure you grab your copy right away.