Brian Eno, Holger Czukay, and J. Peter Schwalm Provide Food for Thought

In 1998, ambient pioneer Brian Eno, former Can bassist Holger Czukay, and electro-jazz musician J. Peter Schwalm united for a one-off live-streamed performance (long before streaming was the norm) at the Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, a prestigious museum and exhibition hall in the then German capital, Bonn.

The improvised set further extended Eno’s explorations in the ambient landscape that had defined his work for more than two decades. Having previously collaborated with early electronic trailblazers Cluster on 1977’s Cluster & Eno (also his first time working with Czukay) and charted new musical territory with David Byrne on 1981’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Eno had consistently pushed the boundaries of how we experienced sound—and that’s before you get to his towering solo discography.

Likewise, Czukay had been cultivating his distinct musical identity post-Can with his sample-heavy solo works such as 1979’s Movies. He had been experimenting with sound manipulation and world music as far back as 1969’s Canaxis 5.

Joining them for this standalone performance (live shows from Brian Eno at this time were vanishingly rare) was Peter Schwalm, a young and innovative force in fusion-electronica and leader of the collective Slop Shop. Completing the lineup were Schwalm’s Slop Shop collaborators Raoul Walton on bass and Jem Atai on drums.

The group performed their boundary-pushing avant-tronica on the opening night of Eno’s light sculpture exhibition Future Light-Lounge Proposal alongside servings of sushi, roti, and reibekuchen—the dishes that lend the album its title. The show, which ran for an epic three hours, reportedly only came to a halt when the cops turned up and pulled the plug. If all this sounds like a lot of context to unpack, wait until you hear the music.

The 17-minute “Sushi” sets the sonic dining table with chimes, warped Eastern chanting, blasts of abrasive static noise, chopped-up vocal samples, and shimmering ambient textures. Like the rest of the album, the track is a confounding juxtaposition of sounds. But, chaotic though the mix may be, the track is underpinned by a propulsive and highly danceable drum and bass-inspired percussion line.

The following track, “Roti,” keeps things (sort of) rooted to the dance floor. It kicks off with a funky bass groove and squelching synths before introducing seemingly random, discordant stabs of keyboard and industrial sound.

“Wasser,” a pensive, if intermittently jarring soundscape, dives into more Brian Eno-centric ambient waters—at least in the first half. Here, elongated synth drones and glitchy electronics provide a backdrop to tactile, plucked bass notes and jazzy percussion, occasionally interrupted by random flares of electro-noise.

If “Wasser” captures the group at their most ambient, it’s tempting to interpret “Reibeckuchen” as the closest they get to capturing Can’s early 1970s, Damo Suzuki era, albeit filtered through the lens of avant-garde IDM. It’s a fusion of tribal rhythms, tape loops, strings, and flutes, all anchored by hypnotic, repetitive drumming from Atari that nods to Can’s late, great Jaki Liebezeit.

Dancing time is well and truly over when you reach the closer “Wein”, which opens with a disorientating torrent of incomprehensible fast-forwarded vocal samples before devolving into a noise collage of scraping static, white noise, and processed beats. It’s the shortest track on Sushi! Roti! Reibekuchen! but also the least coherent.

The collective never performed again. Schwalm and Eno would work together on subsequent albums, Music for Onmyo (2000) and Drawn from Life (2001), and Czukay continued to furrow his unique path until he died in 2017. But Sushi! Roti! Reibekuchen! was, is, and will ever remain a singular event. For fans of Eno or Czukay or those who have wondered what Can might sound like if they jammed with Brian Eno, this live recording is as close to an answer as we’re likely to get. To be sure, even on this timed-back curated version, not everything lands. That’s the nature of improvised music as adventurous as this. But when it all comes together—as it frequently does—it’s soul food, a feast for the ears.