The Lost Tapes, out on 18 June 2012, was curated by Irmin Schmidt and Daniel Miller, compiled by Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore, and edited by Jono Podmore.

When the legendary Can studio in Weilerswist was sold to the German Rock N Pop Museum, they bought everything, including the army mattresses that covered the walls for sound protection, and relocated it to Gronau.

Whilst dismantling the studio, master tapes were found and stored in the Spoon archive. With barely legible labeling, no one was sure what was on these until Irmin Schmidt and long time collaborator Jono Podmore started to go through over 30 hours of music.

What they found was years of archived material, not outtakes, but rather tracks which had been shelved for a variety of reasons – soundtracks to films that were never released and tracks that didn’t make it onto the final versions of albums due to space.

Irmin Schmidt explains “Obviously the tapes weren’t really lost, but were left in the cupboards of the studio archives for so long everybody just forgot about them. Everybody except Hildegard, who watches over Can and its work like the dragon over the gold of the Nibelungen and doesn’t allow forgetting.”

The final cut of tracks, dating from 1968-1977, features studio material recorded at Schloss Nörvenich and Can Studio, Weilerswist with the Can line up of Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitars, Jaki Liebezeit on drums and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards, and on most tracks, vocals from Malcolm Mooney or Damo Suzuki.

Can was formed by ex-student of Stockhausen Irmin Schmidt, who, fired by the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa abandoned his career in classic music to form a group which could utilise and transcend all boundaries of ethnic, electronic experimental and modern classical music.

According to Spin CDs, the box set will be a “very limited edition, numbered 10” square, old fashioned tape box style packaging with 24 page 10” booklet.” and retail for less than £30. They also have a tracklist:

The Lost Tapes – Part 1

1. Millionenspiel
2. Waiting For The Streetcar
3. Evening All Day
4. Deadly Doris
5. Graublau
6. When Darkness Comes
7. Blind Mirror Surf
8. Oscura Primavera
9. Buble Rap

The Lost Tapes – Part 2

1. Your Friendly Neighbourhood Whore
2. Waiting For The Streetcar
3. The Agreement
4. Midnight Sky
5. Desert
6. Spoon (Live)
7. Dead Pigeon Suite
8. Abra Cada Braxas
9. A Swan Is Born
10. The Loop

The Lost Tapes – Part 3

1. Godzilla Fragment
2. On The Way To Mother Sky
3. Midnight Men
4. Networks Of Foam
5. Messers, Scissors, Fork and Light
6. Barnacles
7. E.F.S 108
8. Private Nocturnal
9. Alice
10. Mushroom (Live)
11. One More Saturday Night (Live)