Looking at the eventful biography of Can bassist Holger Czukay, one could come to the conclusion that the experimental musician was an eccentric and irrepressible free spirit. But Czukay repeatedly emphasised in interviews that he was always dependent on a musical partner in his creative work, whether in the form of a concrete counterpart or through radio waves and later the internet. But most of his partners were flesh and blood. His oeuvre, which is akin to cinema, is adorned with a cast equal to that of a Scorcese film: Brian Eno, Phew, Rolf Dammers, David Sylvian, Annie Lennox, Jah Wobble, the colleagues from Can - the list could be continued far and wide. Many of these masterpieces are out of print today, and so the label Grönland, which already released the highly acclaimed retrospective CINEMA at the beginning of the year on Holger's 80th birthday, has made it its task to make Holger's music accessible again in remastered new editions.
The first of these were two reissues with David Sylvian (Japan), who as a musician fits Czukay like perhaps no other - his work is characterised by contrasts between inviting pop music and stubborn experiments. Two of the most exciting of these musical experiments can be found in "Plight & Premonition" (1988) and "Flex & Mutability" (1989), for the re-release of which none other than Sylvian himself took the initiative. Czukay's first musical album "Canaxis 5", an early sampling work with Rolf Dammers secretly recorded at night in 1968 in Stockhausen's Cologne studio at WDR, which today fetches top prices on Discogs, follows at the end of September - together with "Movies" (1979), the first solo album after Can, as well as the post-punk record "Full Circle" (1982), a collaboration with Jaki Liebezeit (Can) and Jah Wobble (PiL), which Holger counted among his favourites. Then, in mid-October, four more solo records by Czukay are released, which once again make it clear that the Cologne musician is one of the most important German artists of the post-war period: "Der Osten Ist Rot" (1984), "Rome Remains Rome" (1987), "RadioWave Surfer" (1991) and "Moving Pictures" (1993).
The first of these were two reissues with David Sylvian (Japan), who as a musician fits Czukay like perhaps no other - his work is characterised by contrasts between inviting pop music and stubborn experiments. Two of the most exciting of these musical experiments can be found in "Plight & Premonition" (1988) and "Flex & Mutability" (1989), for the re-release of which none other than Sylvian himself took the initiative. Czukay's first musical album "Canaxis 5", an early sampling work with Rolf Dammers secretly recorded at night in 1968 in Stockhausen's Cologne studio at WDR, which today fetches top prices on Discogs, follows at the end of September - together with "Movies" (1979), the first solo album after Can, as well as the post-punk record "Full Circle" (1982), a collaboration with Jaki Liebezeit (Can) and Jah Wobble (PiL), which Holger counted among his favourites. Then, in mid-October, four more solo records by Czukay are released, which once again make it clear that the Cologne musician is one of the most important German artists of the post-war period: "Der Osten Ist Rot" (1984), "Rome Remains Rome" (1987), "RadioWave Surfer" (1991) and "Moving Pictures" (1993).
