Recorded on a sultry hot August night at the Roman Amphitheatre, Théâtre Antique d’Arles, Schmidt recalls, “I remember a very beautiful atmosphere. It was a summer night in the South of France, everybody was stoned and the atmosphere was very special”. This incredible recording mirrors the gauzy ambience of the evening.
The new album – out on 25 September 2026 - originates from a fan recording of the show, and documents a performance that founding member Irmin Schmidt remembers fondly.
Can Live in Arles 1975 features the core line up of Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli, and Holger Czukay. The concert, with Nico & Kevin Ayres as well as Ash Ra Tempel supporting, is remembered by two fans – including the author / journalist Pascal Bussy – for the sleeve notes, which also feature a translation of a French magazine article from the time.
The new album is the latest in a series of live recordings that have been unearthed from the Spoon Records vaults and from fan recordings, then painstakingly assembled by founding member Irmin Schmidt and producer / engineer René Tinner.
Can Live in Stuttgart 1975, (Uncut’s Reissue of the Year, #2 in MOJO’s Reissues of the Year, #7 in The Wire’s Archive Reissues of the Year plus more), was followed by Can Live in Cuxhaven 1976, (which again featured heavily in the Reissues of the Year); Can Live in Brighton 1975 (“Pure dynamite… keep them coming” – MOJO); Can Live in Paris 1973, the first of the series to feature the late Damo Suzuki (“a vivid tribute to one of rock's best improvisational groups” – Financial Times), Can live in Aston 1977 (The Quietus’s Reissue of the Week - “It’s undoubtedly music for mind expansion, but it stretches the brain in ways that remain unique – Can have always been purveyors of inner space rock, with each trip into the unknown as different as their shows”) and 2024’s Can Live In Keele 1977 - the most requested live show since the series began was one of Record Collector’s Albums of the Year, “capturing them at their experimental, improvisational best.”
Founded in the late ‘60s and disbanded just over a decade later, Can’s unprecedented and bold marriage of hypnotic grooves and avant-garde instrumental textures has made them one of the most important and innovative bands of all time. This collection of albums recorded throughout Europe from 73-77, reveal a totally different perspective to the group. Through the series, you may hear familiar themes, riffs and motifs popping up and rippling through the jams, but they are often only fleeting glimpses of familiar faces in a swirling crowd. At other points, you will hear music that didn’t make it onto the official album canon. In these recordings Can go to even more extreme ranges than with their studio work: from mellow, ambient drift-rock to the white-dwarf sonic-meltdown moments they used to nickname ‘Godzillas’. And even as they adapt and chase the rhythm from minute to minute, you can hear the extraordinary musical telepathy its members shared.
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