Malcolm Mooney

Malcolm Mooney is an African-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. 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.

An album of material was recorded, initially entitled Prepared To Meet Thy Pnoom, although no record company was willing to release it. 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 with Mooney's mixture of paranoid ramblings and 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 Can in 1970 on the advice of his psychiatrist, and returned to the United States as it was believed that this would be beneficial for his mental health.

He rejoined Can in 1986 to record a one-off reunion album, Rite Time. He also has released two 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. 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. Mooney now focuses on his visual art. In 2007 Matthew Higgs invited Mooney to exhibit a piece at New York's venerable White Columns.

Discography

Malcolm Mooney appears on the following original albums:

With Can:

• Monster Movie (1969)
• Soundtracks (1970)
• Unlimited Edition compilation, includes all the tracks on earlier Limited Edition (1976)
• Delay 1968 compilation (1981)
• Rite Time (1989)

With Tenth Planet:

• Malcolm Mooney and the Tenth Planet (1998)
• Hysterica (2006)

With Andy Votel:

• All Ten Fingers (2002)

Trivia

• The rock band The Mooney Suzuki takes its name from Malcolm Mooney and Can's later vocalist Damo Suzuki.

External links

• http://www.malcolmmooney.com/

Notes

Canada