Canaxis 5

Canaxis 5 (or simply Canaxis) is the only studio album by the Technical Space Composer's Crew, released in 1969 by Music Factory. On later issues, the artist credit was changed to Holger Czukay and Rolf Dammers. The album was remixed for Spoon Records releases and again for the Revisited Rec. release.[6]

Canaxis 5
Studio album by

Technical Space Composer's Crew
(Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers)
Released1969 (1969)
Recorded1968 (1968)
StudioStudio für Elektronische Musik,[1]
(Cologne, Germany)
Genre
Length37:54
LabelMusic Factory
ProducerHolger Czukay
Rolf Dammers (co-producer)
Holger Czukay chronology
Canaxis 5
(1969)		 Movies
(1979)

Mark Prendergast of Record Collector describes it as "an experimental album of taped sound collages, mixing various field recordings with electronic tones", a direction he noticed Czukay digressed from to be bassist with Can.[2] Music and Musicians wrote that Canaxis 5 is the result of Czukay – a pupil of Stockhausen's – working with found sounds and musique concrète in collaboration with Rolf Dammers, adding that the "tape segments and multiple editing" utilised in the piece were based on the concepts of Pierre Henri and Pierre Schaeffer, who "are credited with its invention in Paris during the late 40s."[4]

Czukay's first album, it was created for the private label Music Factory, and according to the musician, sold well. He said he created the album by taking music from around the world, including Africa, Asia, Australia and Vietnam, using the radio to collect many of the extracts, and then "mixed the completed tape recordings with European music, e.g. choral music using tape loops.[7] Czukay said of the process: "Recordings were monaural and were made in the West German radio station at night when nobody was there. ... I can admit that I took the key without permission and went into Stockhausen's studio after he had left, to work through the night on my music. I really couldn't have done my composing any other way at the time. The basic equipment consisted of three tape recorders that were used to record sounds and tape loops from which two or three layers were built up."[7]

"Boat Woman Song" contains samples from a shortwave radio recording of the traditional love song "Doh Dam Tara", performed by members of the Cham culture, who primarily live in Cambodia and Vietnam. It was inadvertently credited as a completely different ethnic Vietnamese song, "Hò Mái Nhì", when the album was initially released.[8]

Critical reception and legacy
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[9]

In December 1972, New Musical Express published the third instalment of Ian MacDonald's "Krautrock: Germany Calling" feature on the birth of krautrock, in which MacDonald reviewed several "late arrivals" including Canaxis 5, which he identified as an "Inner Special Production". He wrote: "It features Roland Dammers and Can's Holger Czukay playing with loops, electronics, and field-recordings of Vietnamese peasant-songs – which could have beer very interesting but, through self-indulgence, isn't."[10] In his review for AllMusic, Ted Mills described the music as "a hybrid of ambient soundspaces, musicological sampling, and a sort of Steve Reich-like loop system."[9]

Can biographers Rob Young and Irmin Schmidt deem Canaxis 5 to be "one of the great crossover works of the sixties, an electroacoustic tape piece created in do-it-yourself circumstances." They add that it is sometimes credited as "the origin of sampling of music," and while they add that this is not strictly true, the album "nevertheless adeptly dovetails the parallel disciplines of loop-based minimalism, superimposition and cultural appropriation, a picking from the 'exotic' Far East that is firmly rooted in the horrors of the Western war being waged there. It is, therefore, a non-academic piece of concrete tape music that plays directly to the counter-cultural political concerns."[5]

Track listing

Both pieces composed by Holger Czukay.

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Boat-Woman-Song"17:39
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."Canaxis"20:15

Personnel

Adapted from Canaxis 5 liner notes.[11]

Technical Space Composer's Crew

Release history
Region Date Label Format Catalog
Germany 1969 Music Factory LP SRS 002
1982 Spoon SPOON 015
United States 1995 CD
Germany 2006 Revisited Rec. REV 063

References
  1. "Holger Czukay – Canaxis". Discogs. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  2. Prendergast, Mark (April–May 1990). "Introspective". Record Collector (128–129). Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  3. Olivetti, Mr (23 March 2018). "Holger Czukay – Cinema". Freq. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  4. "S.I." Music and Musicians International. 37 (15). 1988. Retrieved 4 July 2023. Back in 1968 Holger Czukay , a Stockhausen pupil , did some work with ' found ' sounds or musique concrète in partnership with Rolf Dammers . It resulted in an artefact titled Canaxis 5. This piece , using tape segments and multiple multiple editing , was based on the ideas of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henri , who are credited with its invention in Paris during the late 40s.
  5. Young, Rob; Schmidt, Irmin (2018). All Gates Open: The Story of Can. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0571311491. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  6. Buckley, Peter, ed. (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock (3rd ed.). London: Rough Guides. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-843531-05-0. OCLC 59305933.
  7. Beecher, Mike (May 1982). "Holger Czukay". Electronics & Music Maker: 6–9. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  8. https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/various-artists/music-of-viet-nam/
  9. Mills, Ted. "Holger Czukay: Canaxis Review". Allmusic. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  10. MacDonald, Ian (23 December 1972). "Krautrock: Germany Calling #3". New Musical Express. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  11. Canaxis 5 (sleeve). Technical Space Composer's Crew. Münich, Germany: Music Factory. 1969.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)


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