SCHWINGUNGEN

How do you follow up a milestone album in an emerging genre? ASH RA TEMPEL decided to answer this question by developing the global musical direction of their first opus by adding more variety. Schwingungen ("Vibrations" in English) consists in a mixture of psychedelic / space rock / krautrock jams incorporating some surprising novelties and experimentations, such as a singer and... a saxophone!

Klaus Schulze left, Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke recruited Wolfgang Mueller at percussions and invited a few guest musicians for this record.

Side one, entitled "Light And Darkness", is the 'rock-y' side. The slow and mysterious "Light: Look at your Sun" is a floating arid ballad, with bluesy accents. Hypnotic and cool, but a bit monotonous. The weird "Darkness: Flowers must die" can sometimes remind AMON DÜÜL II or HAWKWIND's "You Shouldn't Do That". After the ambient introduction and its various sounds, the atmosphere become tribal, partly due to the percussions and John L.'s wild incantatory singing. Like an energetic frightening trance, with out-of-space effects and saxophone. The heat rises, rises, until the sonic deflagration of the ending! That was some quite mad trip.

Side two, entitled "Schwingungen", is the spacey side. "Suche & Liebe" ("Search & Love" in English) is much more peaceful and allows the listener to breathe. The first section of the track is atmospheric and minimalistic, whereas the second section is little more rhythmic. However, the best passage of the disc is undoubtedly the five last minutes: delicate, soothing and unreal. Göttsching and Enke thought they found here the soundtrack of heaven. The musicians were so satisfied that they'll even reuse and extend this part on ASH RA TEMPEL's next album!

More varied but also more uneven than its predecessor, "Schwingungen" is pure "Kosmische Musik", adventurous and pleasant. Despite lengthy sections, the record offers a lot of different ambiances: spacey, introspective, tribal, minimalistic, ferocious, ethereal...

One of ASH RA TEMPEL's best albums. Give it a listen if you enjoy krautrock, PINK FLOYD or even crazy psyched-out music like AMON DÜÜL II's "Tanz der Lemminge".

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