A very underrated album that is almost never appears in krautrock selections. Divided in 2 very different sides, its B-side alone would have been #1, it's the best krautrock track in my opinion, a very moving space rock suite, peacefull and full of melancolia. The A-side is a curious variation around blues themes, but, whereas I don't like blues, thanks to their craziness and effects (plenty of them), I love them too.
Here is a good description found on the blog "My Generation" :
"Ash Ra Tempel's third album is often very misunderstood by fans of their music. It's a real odd one to say the least, and if you're familiar with such albums as their 1971 debut, or Join Inn (1973), this one is quite a shock indeed. By this point, trying to figure out who was in the group has became pretty pointless. Guitarist Manuel Göttsching and bassist Hartmut Enke are still here, with tons of different vocalists, and ex-Tangerine Dream organist Steve Schroyder (he played on Alpha Centauri).
The album starts off with "Space", a suite divided in four movements. It starts off with "Downtown" (...) a downright generic blues sung by a female vocalist. You quickly face some truly mind blowing spacy electronic effects and noise that never lets up! It's pretty much the same throughout, although three more blues songs will follow, but as always, the blues songs never last because it sounds like the band was just so stoned at the time, they'd rather blow people's mind. I can sense quite a bit of irony in the way the band played those blues numbers.
Thanks to the presence of Timothy Leary (who was in exile in neighboring Switzerland), it's no surprise that this music is the effects of an LSD trip. The second half of the album is taken up by a three movement suite called "Time". Here's where detractors of the album finds its redeeming qualities, as this is very much like like Alpha Centauri-era Tangerine Dream. The last movement of "Time" is "She" which is basically a re-recording of "Suche & Liebe" off Ash Ra Tempel's 1972 album Schwingungen (note by Tonton M. : "she" is far better than the version from "Schwinungen"). This is a wonderful, and underrated album, which if you approach with an open-mind you'll probably enjoy it."
Find this magic album here.
4 commentaires:
Ces trois premiers posts nous annoncent un été planant...
Merci pour le voyage.
Never heard this album before now so Thank you for the chance to hear it
Many thanks for your wonderful kraut rock charts! I enjoyed every single album on your list. A great starting point for anyone wishing to find out more about the genre and these amazingly weird bands.
[...]Göttsching’s performance and recording experience with Ash Ra Tempel – as well as his contributions to projects such as Seven Up and Tarot (with Timothy Leary and Walter Wegmüller respectively) –[...]
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