OFF: Ash Ra Tempel (was: Re: My Top 10 Space albums)

[Jon Jarrett]

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Nick Medford wrote:

> Interesting list... a few comments/questions...
> >
> >4) ----------------------------------------
> >Ash Ra Temple - Ash Ra Temple
> >   ---
> >Acid Mothers Temple - La Novia
> >Acid Mothers Temple - In C
> >Agitation Free - At the Cliffs of the River Rhine
> >Pharaoh Overlord - #1
> >SubArachnoid Space - The Sleeping Sickness
> >
> >Intense, layered, mostly instrumental, guitar-based spacerock.
>
> I only discovered Ash Ra Tempel relatively recently- I knew the name for
> aeons, but my first exposure to their music was at the Manuel
> Gottsching/Klaus Schulze reunion gig (under the ART name) at the RFH a few
> years ago... which wasn't great- noodly chillout music, nice enough but
> nothing special (that performance was released as a live album, Gin Rose,
> though I've never heard it). Anyway I gave them the benefit of the doubt
> and sometime later picked up the first Ash Ra Tempel album (probably
> because I saw it going cheap somewhere, thus are a few great purchases and
> some not-so-great ones made) and it is as you say an absolute classic, a
> thousand times better than the concert I'd seen. The only other one I have
> is "Join Inn", which- naff title aside- is of a similar standard (similar
> format too- two side-long pieces, first side freaked-out jamming enlivened
> by Schulze's incredible drumming, second side much more meditative, almost
> devotional).

        For what use an additional perspective may be, I have these two
and also _Schwingungen_; I listen to the first one most of all, and _Join
Inn_ probably the least, perhaps because of the amount of Das Ludicroix I
have which does broadly similar stuff, albeit with less electronics and
not quite such frantic playing. More form however. Anyway. _Schwingungen_
doesn't have Klaus Schulze on it and makes up for it with an entire
additional band, which I believe is Agitation Free, so the sound is more
packed. This one's an occasional thing fr me, there are times when it
disagrees with me and times when it's just right, but its first track is
very fragile and slowly-building blues and its third track is a long piece
ending in a Floydian vocal like `Saucerful of Secrets', which really is
more or less equivalent to what `Alpha Centauri' is on the epnoymous
Tangerine Dream album, very kosmische. The trouble spot is the second
track (I can't remember any titles but I think this may be `Flowers Must
Die') which is a fairly fierce freak-out with really quite stressful
vocals and there are only times when this seems like a thing worth
listenoing to to me.

        I do need more ART though. Just haven't got round to getting
_Seeven Up_ yet which I think is the obvious choice. Anyway, yours,
                                                                    Jon


--
                Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
  "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
       So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
       (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)