Jaki Liebezeit

Jaki Liebezeit (26 May 1938 – 22 January 2017) was a German drummer, best known as a founding member of Can. He was called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral".

He was born in Dresden, Germany. In the mid-1960s, he was part of Manfred Schoof's quintet, who were early exponents of European free jazz.

He subsequently moved towards the new possibilities being opened by psychedelic music as a member of Can. His drumming was prominent in the band's sound, particularly in his much-admired contribution to the side-long "Halleluhwah" on Tago Mago. Liebezeit is best known for his exceptional "metronome" style of playing; other members of Can have suggested that he sounds as though he is "half-man, half machine".

Liebezeit provided drums, in the form of the distinctive "Motorik beat", for Michael Rother's late-1970s solo albums.

In 1980, he became a member of Phantomband, and has formed drum ensembles such as Drums off Chaos and Club off Chaos. Later he recorded with numerous musicians, such as Jah Wobble and Philip Jeck, with whom he produced an album for Jah Wobble's 30 Hertz Records, and has contributed drums and percussion to many albums as a guest throughout the years, such as the Depeche Mode album Ultra and Brian Eno's album Before and After Science. Recently, he has worked with Burnt Friedman on the Secret Rhythms albums and with Schiller on the Atemlos album.

The last release he worked on was the Cyclopean EP, released on 11 Feb 2013 on 12” and download for Mute Records. Cyclopean was a project that involved, other than Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt from Can alongside long time collaborators Jono Podmore (Kumo / Metamono) and musician and producer Burnt Friedman.

Liebezeit died of pneumonia on 22 January 2017.