NEW AGE OF EARTH

Manuel Göttsching follows up his work in Ash Ra Tempel with his solo project Ashra, which presents a mildly different flavour of electronic Krautrock - there's a greater emphasis on highly orchestrated synthesisers, in a mode also explored by Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze at around the same time, and less freewheeling psychedelia on offer. Manuel's guitar by and large sits back and lets the synthesisers take centre stage, but when it's given spotlight tme Manuel proves himself able to produce an excellent solo or two. A perkier and more upbeat alternative to the deep space explorations former Ash Ra Tempel colleague Schulze was producing at the time, New Age of Earth is a fine start to the Ashra project.