No Comprendo May 8, 2001

Featuring vocals by Jon Spencer, Diamanda Galas, Julee Cruise, Andre Williams, Kid Congo Powers, Francoise Cactus [Stereo Total], Hanin Elias [Atari Teenage Riot], and Khan.

Diamanda Galas: “Turkish brother homopsychotic Khan is very disturbed — all the better for our mutual enemies.”

Kid Congo Powers: “Khan has a great ass... and the music is fabtabulous! ... ‘Why Hurt Flesh’ was supposed to be like The Crystals’ ‘He Hit Me and it Felt Like A Kiss’ but we went a bit wild and it turned to cannibalism!... Khan was all for it. It’s nice to fraternize with genius.”

Alec Empire: “Khan is a true genius! A lot of people copied him, fuck them, he is the original. The collaboration between Hanin and him defines what New York’s indie drum-machine bands are trying since years but never achieve. I just wish Hanin would stop carrying a gun...”

Hanin Elias: “Working with Can was like a quickie, spontaneous, fast and satisfactory. I’m up for some more...”

Julee Cruise: “My dog thinks Khan’s music is Devil music...”

Khan composed and played all the music on No Comprendo, then invited a host of vocalists to come up with vocal melodies and lyrics. Some of the singers Khan already knew, others were people he admired for some time. Khan actually was able to get his entire “wish list” (save for Fred Schneider, with whom he recorded but whose label prohibits side projects). Though their parts were created completely separate from Khan and without his input, both artists were in the studio during recording (alternating between NYC and Berlin). More cooperative than collaborative, this approach provided some exciting tension and discord, illustrated by the fighting cocks on the CD cover. Khan found that the women came to the studio very prepared, while the men improvised on the spot (he thinks Andre Williams has no recollection of even having participated).

Khan says: “The idea of No Comprendo was to design songs for different singers so they could come up with their part and bring the song to the next level. It’s about cooperation, not just adding a vocalist. It’s about freedom, as I didn’t tell anyone what to do and accepted whatever they came up with. It’s also about spending time with people you like, and in places you like, which is kind of a theme running through my life, with my myriad collaborators, mixed heritage, and the time I now spend split among Berlin, NYC, and Mexico. The music is inspired by music I grew up with­New York bands like The Contortions, Lydia Lunch, and Diamanda Galas, German bands like Der Plan, Einstuerzende Neubauten and Toedliche Doris, and other bands like Pere Ubu, Psychic TV, the Gun Club, and Public Enemy. ‘No Comprendo’ is a tourist expression, something the Americans constantly say in Mexico. I’ve felt like a tourist my whole life. I may not understand what’s going on around me, but I know what I want and how to communicate with people I love.”

Can Oral, aka Khan, was born of a Finnish mother and Turkish father, and grew up as an outsider in a hostile Germany. He started his first band Mut zum Schlag (Courage to the Beat) in 1982 with 2 drummers and Khan screaming, and released the first German hip hop/no wave record. He eventually tired of the rock-band life of rehearsals and beer, bought a cheap Atari computer and Prophet 2000 sampler, and started making music for German and Austrian TV programs.

In the late 80s, Khan met the Time Tunnel/Structure posse from Cologne and started making techno with people like Walker, Jammin Unit, Mike Ink. and Jorg Burger. In 1992 he left for New York, where he lived with Jimi Tenor and had a band called Public Extacy that played the early NY Illbient/Lalalandia parties. In their cockroach-infested kitchen studio, they also recorded hundreds of records such as the Bizz OD smash hit “I’m Coming Out Of Your Speakers” that became one of Junior Vasques [Sound Factory]’s favorites. In 1994, Khan opened Temple Records (an electronic record store in Manhattan) and started the El Turco Loco label. Once he realized that his least favorite DJs were spinning his records, Khan decided to change his style and became one of ambient’s most innovative producers, with projects like H.E.A.D. , Global Electronic Network, Radiowaves and 4E, recording for such labels as Mille Plateaux/Force Inc., Harvest, and Rising High. These records had significant impact on the UK Fat Cat, Ifach, and Ninja Tune scenes. In 1999, Matador released the electro-porn quasi-soundtrack 1-900-GET-KHAN, and a “greatest hits” compilation of sorts, Passport, in early 2000. Khan is currently living in Mexico exploring new languages, art, and music, and remaining an "outsider" until the term becomes irrelevant.

Passport January 25, 2000

A Khan Dictionary:

H.E.A.D. is Kerosene and Khan playing around with radios and surface noise in Khan’s Brooklyn kitchen. Their main audience was cockroaches before becoming hip in the 1994 UK ambient scene.

4E is Khan’s former apartment # on the lower east side of Manhattan and musically stands for Future-Electro-No-Retro or mutant Hip-Hop.

Cube 40 is the attempt to be the Ramones of techno by reproducing/recreating the same song over and over and wearing a very recognizable outfit. The project eventually ran out of ideas. “Launch” is pretty much the only exceptional song they ever did.

Global Electronic Network started as a very lo-fi project on the 4E apartment floor with second-hand drum machines and broken keyboards and evolved into new directions with every album.

Khan & Walker are two friends like to get fukt up and make music for their own record collection.

El Turco Loco is one of Khan’s labels that specializes in "Music Nobody Needs." It reflects Khan’s interest in music without boundaries and genres. All releases are very limited and already rare.

Super-8 works as an experimental pop label that is dance-floor compatible. Minimal-dub-house-trax.

PSI-Project is Khan’s first band. Started in his father’s bedroom in 1988. The featured track was recorded for the reunion of the band in 1997 and explains pretty well what these guys are all about. The band never got a record deal until today.

Black Sabbath Riot is a two member band, Lary 7 and Khan, and was formed via a cassette tape of a Black Sabbath concert in Milwaukee in 1980 (Ronnie James Dio was singing for them at the time). The concert never took place because the audience, after getting pretty pissed (and pissed off at the band), destroyed the venue. Lary and Khan decided to record a couple of songs that could have been played that night as if Black Sabbath were still alive and real cool.

Mass-Turbator did only one 12" that went straight to #1 on the DMC Buzz charts in 1993. NO JOKE!

1-900-GET-KHAN May 4, 1999

Putting the "ech" back in techno... KHAN 1-900-GET-KHAN Electronic Music Maven Assails Puritanical US Sex Laws and Sterility of Current Club Scene with 1-900 number, Sex for Sale on his CD cover, and Sleaziest Record of the Year

The number costs $2.99/minute, the men advertising on the front cover are even steeper, so the CD is a sweet deal indeed at only about a quarter per minute...and (practically) guilt-free. 1-900-GET-KHAN is a working electro-sexual porn soundtrack with slick beats and prickly textures. It also is a working phone-sex number, with slick beats and prickly textures. The cover boys offer the same. Simple, huh? It’s about the ONLY simple thing about Khan, aka Can Oral. And yes, that IS his real name.

Can Oral was born to a Turkish father and Finnish mother and raised in Germany, before moving to New York City a few years ago. He has made literally hundreds of records under numerous pseudonyms (4E, Gizz TV, Bizz OD, El Turco Loco...) for numerous labels (Mille Plateaux, Force Inc., Harvest/EMI, Eat Raw...). He operates three record labels (Super-8, El Turco Loco, and Temple Records) and runs New York’s influential music shop Temple Records. He is also a well-respected DJ and has spun extensively throughout Europe, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia, in addition to the numerous parties he hosts in NYC. Khan is available for hire, though be warned--he charges per minute as well.

1-900-GET KHAN is Khan’s attempt to bring flesh and passion to a frigid electronic scene. It is also a reaction against Rudy Giuliani’s recent anti-sex laws in New York City, and a celebration of the illicit sex which is the obvious result of such oppression. Acting as voyeur to the sexual underground, Khan replaces the autonomy of the machines used to make his music with an absurdly lewd human physicality. Thus, the body returns to the forefront and Foucault can sleep soundly in his grave. Julee Cruise, known best for singing the "Twin Peaks" theme, co-wrote and sings on "Body Dump" and "Nowhere." "The 12th Commandment" features vocals by Bree McMasters, a professional phone-sexette from LA.

1-900-GET-KHAN is an expensive dinner, too many martinis, edible undies, and an apres-cigarette rolled into one raunchy package. Spin it right round like a record, baby.