Ash Ra Tempel

In the late Sixties, Germany too was swept up by the psychedelic storm that had first erupted in the United States with the debut of the 13th Floor Elevators, before landing in Britain thanks to the first two Pink Floyd albums. Before long, though, the German psychedelic scene veered off into territory far more abstruse than its American and British counterparts of the same period. The German musical stage was overrun by a host of bands, each with its own distinct stylistic quirks, yet all bound together by the same "cosmic" outlook and the same creative drive.

Can adapted Stockhausen's avant-garde ideas to psychedelic and progressive rock; Faust championed the bold notion of a chaotic, expressionist music; Amon Duul II made their mark with their demonic acid-rock; Neu! invented the so-called "motorik beat"; Tangerine Dream, and later Klaus Schulze on his own, gave life to intricate electronic tone poems; Popol Vuh ranged freely from electronics to religious rock. It was then that the terms "kraut-rock", referring to the specific geographical scene these bands belonged to, and "kosmische musik", tied to those musicians dubbed "cosmic couriers" for their boundless compositions, were coined.

Guitarist Manuel Gottsching also took his first artistic steps within German cosmic music, founding the ultra-lysergic Ash Ra Tempel together with Klaus Schulze, who had just left Tangerine Dream, and Hartmut Enke, who had previously played alongside Gottsching in the Steeple Chase Bluesband.

Drawing equally on the hallucinated wanderings of Pink Floyd, the electronic experiments of Tangerine Dream, and the theories on the beneficial effects of drugs put forward by writer Timothy Leary, Ash Ra Tempel released their self-titled debut album in 1970. Schulze subsequently left the band to pursue his own admirable solo career, and was replaced by Wolfgang Muller.

The trio behind "Schwingungen", the band's second album, was thus made up of Gottsching (guitar, organ and electronics), Enke (guitar, bass and electronics) and Muller himself (drums and vibraphone). For the occasion, the group was also joined by singer John L. (also on percussion and jaw harp), percussionist Uli Popp on bongos, and saxophonist Matthias Wehler.

With this record, Gottsching, freed from Schulze's somewhat overbearing presence, was able to unleash his full creative verve, shaping a work built around two genuine suites: "Light And Darkness", itself split into two "movements", and "Schwingungen", which includes the lengthy "Suche & Liebe".

The album opens with "Look At Your Sun", which at six and a half minutes is the shortest track on offer. The piece is essentially an intergalactic blues, opened by the catatonic string-bending of Gottsching's guitar, over which John L.'s drunken chant looms large. As it unfolds, the track slowly gathers strength until it bursts into a diminished, Hendrix-like guitar workout.

Electronic hisses and mechanical percussion introduce "Flowers Must Die": the noise of the cosmos begins to reveal itself. A grand dance of decay driven by possessed bongos and electrified guitar washes, "Flowers Must Die" almost feels like a forerunner of punk's "No Future" and the rhythmic aphasia of Pil. The track also features John L.'s Dionysian vocals and the Eastern-tinged blasts of Matthias Wehler's sax.

The twenty minutes of the instrumental “Suche & Liebe” are pure Hölderlinian poetry: the Self within the cosmos, the one within the whole, the finite within the infinite, time within the eternal. In this composition, perhaps, the entire aesthetic of kosmische musik can be found in a nutshell. Gusts of electronics, vibraphone chimes and organ drones build a cosmic landscape that shifts and mutates by the second. Into this metamorphic flow, toward the end, comes the warble of a human voice: it's man taking part in the endless transformation of the world.

“Suche & Liebe” is an inward vision in the Romantic sense, understood not as the author withdrawing into himself (as happens, for instance, with confessional singer-songwriters), but as the performer's participation in the universality of existence.

These twenty minutes potentially contain the whole of the universe. Anything more would be superfluous.

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08/12/2007