EGN NEWS DESK
Damo Suzuki, a Japanese vocalist finest identified for his position with the revered and influential German experimental rock group Can throughout its most important interval, died on Feb. 9 at his dwelling in Cologne, Germany. He was 74.
His dying was introduced by Can’s label, Spoon Records. No trigger was given, however Mr. Suzuki had been recognized with colon most cancers in 2014. Initially given a ten p.c probability of restoration, he endured greater than 40 surgical procedures within the ensuing decade.
Mr. Suzuki was a free spirit who left Japan as a youngster for a nomadic life in Europe. His music ignored style boundaries, and his singing usually gave the impression of shamanic incantations in an invented language.
“If you’re a inventive particular person,” he mentioned in a 2013 interview with The Japan Times, “it’s essential to interrupt guidelines. If you’re in the course of the system, you possibly can’t create a lot. But should you’re on the skin, you possibly can simply keep away from it, begin from zero and make your individual stuff with no affect in any respect.”
With Can, his enigmatic, generally indecipherable utterances wove by free-flowing grooves. His vocals might be as lilting as a lullaby — the Can guitarist Michael Karoli as soon as referred to as him a “loud whisperer” — or as startling as a shriek. In efficiency, whereas his bandmates focused on their devices, Mr. Suzuki shimmied across the stage like a psychedelic imp, usually barefoot and shirtless, his face hidden by an undulating mane of lengthy black hair.
Can was a “rhythmic collision of disparate parts,” Paul Woods, who co-wrote Mr. Suzuki’s 2019 memoir, “I Am Damo Suzuki,” mentioned by e-mail. “That mixture of 4 musicians who gave the impression to be enjoying in their very own universe and a vocalist who sang in a Japanese/English mélange shouldn’t have cohered — but it surely did, completely.”
Indeed, Can was not solely a major inspiration for various bands like Public Image Ltd and Radiohead; it was additionally sampled by hip-hop artists like A Tribe Called Quest and Kanye West. In 1985, Mark E. Smith of the Manchester post-punk band the Fall recorded a tribute, “I Am Damo Suzuki,” which later offered the title for Mr. Suzuki’s autobiography.
Kenji Suzuki was born on Jan. 16, 1950, in Oiso, a coastal city in Kanagawa Prefecture, about an hour’s drive southwest of Tokyo. His father, Daiji, an architect, died of most cancers when Damo was 5. After his dying. Mr. Suzuki’s mom, Kimie, ran a small grocery. Mr. Suzuki was one among 5 kids, together with a sister who died when he was an toddler.
The household moved to close by Atsugi when he was 8, and he spent his adolescence there. An detached scholar, extra desirous about listening to the Kinks than his schoolwork, he dropped out of highschool at 17 and plotted his departure from Japan. He despatched a letter to a Swedish newspaper saying he was searching for a household to assist him and educate him the tradition. After receiving 21 enthusiastic responses, he set sail on a Russian ocean liner a day after his 18th birthday.
Disembarking in Siberia, he made his method to the tiny Swedish city of Grasmark. After a brief stint there, he spent the following two years busking throughout Europe, squatting in communes and portray. He picked up the nickname Damo (after a manga character) whereas in Ireland.
In May 1970 he was enjoying guitar in a Munich manufacturing of “Hair” (with a solid that included Donna Summer) when he had an opportunity encounter with Can’s bassist and drummer, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit. Can was about to start a sold-out four-night residency at an area membership, and the band’s vocalist, the American visible artist Malcolm Mooney, had lately left. Mr. Czukay noticed Mr. Suzuki screaming on the road in an impromptu efficiency and invited him to sing with the band that night. After studying there could be no rehearsal, Mr. Suzuki agreed.
The live performance ended up “a form of scary mess, so that really after 20 minutes the disco was emptied,” the Can keyboardist Irmin Schmidt mentioned in a 2021 interview. Nevertheless, Mr. Suzuki joined the band.
His recording debut was on the 1970 Can album “Soundtracks,” a compilation of songs composed for movies. He was additionally on the three landmark Can albums that adopted: “Tago Mago” (1971), “Ege Bamyasi” (1972) and “Future Days” (1973). He left the band, in October 1973, moved to Düsseldorf and retreated from the music world.
Over the following decade he held numerous jobs, together with resort reception clerk. But within the early Nineteen Eighties, after his first battle with most cancers, he returned to music.
He fashioned his closing undertaking, Damo Suzuki’s Network, in 1997. Initially with a gradual lineup, by late 2003 it had morphed into one thing else: what he referred to as the “Never-Ending Tour,” utilizing completely different native musicians he had by no means performed with, whom he referred to as “sound carriers,” at each cease. By his rely, he carried out with greater than 7,000 sound carriers from greater than 40 nations. These makeshift ensembles prevented current materials, and as an alternative of holding rehearsals, Mr. Suzuki would usually cook dinner a big meal for the gamers earlier than the present to get to know them.
Mr. Suzuki termed his technique “immediate composing.” “I play lots of spontaneous music, however his strategy to it was actually explicit to him,” mentioned Joshua Abrams, the founding father of the avant-garde instrumental ensemble Natural Information Society, who performed bass at a 2007 Chicago efficiency. “He had an incredible manner of main with out main. He didn’t need to say ‘Do this’ — he generated a lot power along with his presence and his vocals that anybody who was delicate might faucet into it.”
Mr. Suzuki is survived by his companion, Elke Morsbach; a brother, Hirofumi; a sister, Hiroko; three sons: Mirko and Martin Suzuki, from his 1972 marriage to Gitta Suzuki-Mouret, which resulted in divorce in 1987, and Marco Heibach, from his relationship with Astrid Heibach; and 4 grandchildren.
Mr. Suzuki’s well being struggles had been chronicled by the filmmaker Michelle Heighway, who adopted him for 5 years for the documentary “Energy,” which will probably be launched on DVD subsequent month. “Damo taught me the facility of ‘now,’” Ms. Heighway mentioned.
Jim Siegel, a New York-based drummer who toured Europe with Mr. Suzuki in 2003, realized an analogous lesson.
“These days, so many individuals are actually eager to use no matter triumphs they’d within the distant previous, and he actually didn’t look again,” Mr. Siegel mentioned. “I believe his artwork was an actual reflection of his mind-set about life, that it’s within the second and the wonder is there to create one thing magical.”
