SCHWINGUNGEN

The first Ash Ra Tempel album not to feature Klaus Schulze is much in the same vein as the first one - one side a freak-out with wild guitar and hypnotic percussion rhythms, the other side a dreamier, proto-ambient piece. It is distinguished from the first album mainly by the presence of vocals - some harsh howling on the Light and Darkness suite, and more gentle female vocals in the second side's twenty minute opus Suche and Liebe. Again, it's a decent enough Krautrock album, though I don't personally feel that it's a particularly vital one; in particular, the slightly schizophrenic nature of the group works against it, since there were better bands working in the noisy freakout end of Krautrock and better bands working in the trancey ambient side.