ASH RA TEMPEL

In my ongoing effort to explore more of "Krautrock", I have found Ash Ra Tempel to be quite an intriguing group. This debut album features Klaus Schulze, a well known Electronic music pioneer, an underrated guitarist in the form of Manuel Göttsching, and bass guitarist Hartmut Enke. Schulze's role in this group is to provide percussion, while Göttsching plays lead guitar and also provides wordless vocals.

Ash Ra Tempel's first album has elements of Space Rock and Ambient; it is 2 songs and 45 minutes worth of atmospheric music. The low quality of the recording gives the album some charm. It's like home recordings of a psychedelic jam band. The album's 2 side-long pieces, "Amboss" and "Traummaschine" are almost polar opposites. One is very noisy and cathartic, and the other is much more meditative.

"Amboss" opens the album with a distortion of guitar that is ominous and after a few minutes, the track starts to pick up speed. It's all heavy percussion and blazing guitar solos from here. It is quite the statement. The next track, "Traummaschine" is slower and closer to New Age. The build-up here is much longer. This ambience remains for nearly 8 minutes, and the track doesn't start to gain intensity until halfway. That's asking a lot from the listener. It doesn't mean that it's of lesser quality, it only means that the song isn't as immediate as "Amboss". The last 5 minutes or so is a good piece of ambient guitar.

A possible form of escapism, this album is one that seems perfect for leaving the world behind, not literally but figuratively. It's one to check out for sure.