by Stewart MasonWell, even former members of Can are allowed to make the occasional dud, it seems. Recorded in 2001 and originally available only on Holger Czukay's website, Linear City is a formless, terribly dull album with little of interest to recommend it. It's not even really a Czukay album, which is a huge part of the problem: basically, a BBC producer handed Czukay some African music tapes to remix, and he farmed out the work to visitors at his website, whose first passes at the raw tapes Czukay then edited into four lengthy suites. Despite the 23 names listed in the credits for mixing, vocals and various instruments, the extended, noodly pieces sound like they could have been penciled in during a slow afternoon in Czukay's demo studio. Snatches of the original African percussive grooves meander along, percolating underneath found-sound speech, softly murmured female vocals, and other remix clichés, with little evident care taken on Czukay's part to make things cohesive or in any way interesting. This ain't My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, in other words.