"[6] In late Autumn 1967, as Michael began studying for a law degree in Lausanne, Czukay got the letter from his ex-classmate Irmin Schmidt, inviting him to visit Cologne and join his band.
Soon after the release of Can's 1976 album Flow Motion, Karoli and his girlfriend Shirley set out on a trip to central and east Africa for a couple of weeks, traveling through the Congo, Zaïre, and Kenya".
[10] In 1997, Karoli told a journalist: "When you visit a nightclub in Africa where a good highlife band is playing, you feel like a carrot chucked into a boiling soup.
[13] Karoli developed the atmospheric "Microsonic" recording technique,[14] and collaborated with vocalist Polly Eltes, for the next three years irregularly working in his studio and coming up with album Deluge.
[13][14] In 1999, Karoli participated in CAN Solo Projects concerts with his group SOFORTKONTAKT, named after a late-night TV ad for a sex hotline.
[16] Karoli has been dating Eveline Grunwald between 1971 and 1976, meeting her when Can played at a Hannover nightclub, where she was working behind the bar, and moved to Cologne to be with Michael.
Eveline "kept close ties to the Can family", befriending Hildegard and Irmin Schmidt, and often looking after their young daughter while the parents were on tour.
Around 1976, Karoli met Shirley Argwings-Kodhek, a British woman who had been brought up in Kenya and introduced to Can by Peter Gilmour.
Gilmore met her by chance on one of his trips to Cologne, saying: "We took the same ferry and train, and I got talking to her and we started seeing each other, and then Micky sort of admired her from afar, I think.
[22][23] Before his death, Karoli scheduled an "informal recording session" in Dortmund with drummer Thomas Hopf and electronic musician Mark Spybey.