JOIN INN

I have to confess that I'm a Klaus Schulze fan, so my angle on Ash Ra Tempel is a bit skewed. I only own three of the group's albums, and Schulze is credited with drums and electronics on two (their 1971 debut and Join Inn). Meanwhile, Manuel Göttsching is generally acknowledged as the leader and decisionmaker of Ash Ra Tempel; in fact, Schulze left the band after their first album and appears to have just "joined in" for the recording session that produced this album.

Side One of Join Inn is the aptly named "Freak 'n' Roll," a semi-coordinated jam featuring some of the most proficient - - and most straightforward - - drumming I've heard from Schulze. Guitarist Göttsching is at least as good as he had been "Amboss," the opener from Ash Ra Tempel, and overall, "Freak 'n' Roll" has a clearer sound than "Amboss." Other than that, the two tracks are quite similar.

Mirroring "Traummtaschine," the second side of Ash Ra Tempel, "Jenseits" (English: "the hereafter," "afterworld," "afterlife") is an excellent ambient piece in period Schulze style, with Schulze playing a heavily tweaked organ instead of the drumkit. Although some of Schulze's experiments later in the decade with voice as an accompaniment were successful (e.g., Ernst Walter Siemon on Blackdance, 1974), others were decidedly not (e.g., Arthur Brown on Dune, 1979); Rosi Müller's contributions to "Jenseits" work quite well. And of course, "Jenseits" is not a Schulze solo track. Its composition is credited to Göttsching, Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke (though not to Müller, although she would figure in writing Ash Ra Tempel's follow-up album later in 1973), and Göttsching's improvisation is essential to its success.

Join Inn is strongly reminiscent of Ash Ra Tempel's self-titled debut: in both cases, Side One is a nineteen-minute power-trio jam, and Side Two is a 25-minute ambient cooldown. But in retrospect, the moderately effective Ash Ra Tempel sounds like a practice run for Join Inn, which nicely exemplifies these two sides of Kosmische Musik: an experimental approach to western rock instrumentation and a studio-as-instrument minimalism. While falling short of "masterpiece" status, Join Inn is a very good album, and one I'd recommend to those interested in this subgenre of progressive rock.

P.S.: Whereas "Amboss" seems to be the progenitor of "Freak 'n' Roll" on Join Inn, "Der Vierte Kuss," recorded by Göttsching, Schulze, and Enkein 1970 but unreleased until 1996, may be the ancestor of "Amboss." "Der Vierte Kuss" ("The Fourth Kiss") was released on the Rhino compilation Supernatural Fairy Tales: the Progressive Rock Era.