Malcolm Mooney

Malcolm Mooney
Background information
Instruments Vocals
Associated acts Can, Tenth Planet

Malcolm Mooney (born 1940s) is an American singer, poet, and artist, probably best known as the original vocalist for German krautrock band Can.

Biography

Mooney began singing in high school, and was a member of an a cappella vocal group known as the Six Fifths.[1] He gained some fame as a sculptor in New York, then moved to Germany where he became a friend of Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay, who were forming a band. Mooney joined as lead vocalist. The band was originally known as "Inner Space", but Mooney came up with "The Can", which was later shortened to just Can.[1]

An album of material was recorded, initially entitled Prepared To Meet Thy Pnoom, although no record company was willing to release it.[2] Can made a second attempt at recording an album, which became their debut Monster Movie. It was successful in the German underground scene of the time, and combined the band's Velvet Underground-influenced rock and Mooney's James Brown-style vocal funk. Prepared To Meet Thy Pnoom was released in 1981 as compilation album Delay 1968, and various other tracks that Mooney recorded with the band during this period appear on Soundtracks, and the compilation Unlimited Edition.

Mooney left Europe in 1970.

He rejoined Can in 1986 to record a one-off reunion album, Rite Time. He also has released three albums with the San Francisco Bay Area band Tenth Planet, on the first of which, a new version of the song "Father Cannot Yell" from Monster Movie appears.[1] For the second Tenth Planet album, a different line-up was introduced, and the album saw a limited release in Japan on the P-Vine label. Prior to its issue, the Unfortunate Miracle label issued a limited 7" picture disc single containing two early mixes from the forthcoming album. In 2002, Mooney was invited to sing on Andy Votel's "All Ten Fingers" album - on the song "Salted Tangerines", a version of Mooney's poem of the same name. The Tenth Planet released an album on Milviason Records entitled, [(inCANtations)]. Mooney now focuses on his visual art.[3] In 2007, Matthew Higgs invited Mooney to exhibit a piece at New York's venerable White Columns.[4]

In 2013, Mooney began to collaborate with drummer, songwriter and producer Sean Noonan, along with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Aram Bajakian, to record Pavees Dance: There's Always the Night. The group performed in February of 2014 at the Sons D'Hiver festival in France in advance of the release of the June 2014 release of the CD and accompanying book featuring lyrics and Mooney's art work.

Discography

Malcolm Mooney appears on the following original albums:

With Can:

With Tenth Planet:

White Columns: with Luis Tovar and Alex Marcelo

With Andy Votel:

With Sean Noonan

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Malcolm Mooney". AllMusic. 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  2. ↑ Czukay, Holger (2005). "Holger Czukay's Short History of the Can". furious.com. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Malcolm Mooney". Spoon Records. 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "White Columns (Exhibitor) in New York, NY". Re-title.com. 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.

External links