Can

Can formed in Cologne in the late 1960s with Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitar, Jaki Liebezeit on drums, and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards. Their sound pulled from rock, jazz, and electronics, creating long, hypnotic tracks that helped define what people later called krautrock. They recorded albums like Tago Mago in 1971 and Ege Bamyasi in 1972, which included the song Vitamin C.

Vitamin C has that steady, locked-in rhythm section with Czukay's bass and Liebezeit's drums, over which Karoli's guitar and Schmidt's keyboards drift in and out. It's not exactly a single, but it became one of their most recognizable pieces. Other tracks like Oh Yeah and Bel Air from around the same period work in a similar way, building atmosphere through repetition and texture rather than verse-chorus structures.

They kept recording through the 1970s, putting out albums like Future Days and Soon Over Babaluma, but the core of their sound was really set in those early 70s records. Later musicians in ambient and electronic circles would point to those albums, and to the way Can treated the studio as an instrument, as an influence.