Kenji Suzuki

Kenji "Damo" Suzuki was born in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. In the late 1960s, he traveled across Europe as a nomadic street singer. In May 1970, while busking outside a café in Munich, he was discovered by Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit of the experimental rock group Can, who immediately invited him to front their concert that evening without any rehearsal.

Suzuki served as Can's lead vocalist during their most celebrated and creatively fertile period, recording three undisputed masterpieces of experimental rock: Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972), and Future Days (1973). His hypnotic, spontaneous vocalizations, shifting between English, Japanese, German, and phonetic glossolalia, profoundly influenced post-punk, ambient music, and indie rock. In later decades, Suzuki led the "Damo Suzuki's Network," touring globally to play purely improvised concerts with local "sound carriers" in every city he visited.