One particularly cool thing about how Can take inspiration from the Velvet Underground is how they did so without ever sounding slavish about it. One particularly cool thing about this 18-minute monster jam from Can is how the beat, '71, sounds like a 1991 cold chillin hiphop sample. Even if hiphop doesn't really get around to sampling this song until A Tribe Called Quest's "Lost Somebody" in 2016. "Halleluwah" is an extended jam, 18-minutes worth, with beat flow and exotic, squiggly, jazzy interludes. Minimalist, but not excessively so; more like a keep-it-simple ethic. Vocalist Damo Suzuki only joins in for two buildups. He strikes largely indecipherable poses, like some inspired Karaoki street performer crashing Can's jam session, working himself up to a rat-a-tat-tat eruption of "Halleluwah, Halleluwahs." The first ten times I heard this song I had no idea he was saying "Halleluwah," sounded more like "Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah." A rhythmic repetition of one syllable in a catchy barked tempo. Anyway, it's hypnotic and frenetic and inscrutable. Krautrock is many things but it strikes me right now like progressive music for people bored with the high-culture pretensions and all the fantasy Medievalism of British and American prog rock. Or how about Krautrock is for people when you really get down to it who prefer post-punk to prog rock? I don't go to live shows any more (or I haven't since Covid, anyway) but I still fantasize about dream triple-bill live shows: Miles Davis, Hawkwind, and Can at the Fillmore West, 1971. Hard experimental psychedelic bliss.
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