HW: My Top 10 Space albums

[Nick Medford]

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).

Anyway I'm wondering where to go next with them, the early albums featuring
the original trio are, I'm guessing, all worthwhile, but at a certain point
(around '76?) it seems to become essentially a Gottsching solo project- how
is that stuff? One album that I've often seen available at cheapish price
is "Inventions for Electric Guitar"- anyone got any comments on that?

Moving on to Acid Mothers, I've generally found them an amazing live band,
but they unfortunately seem to have got into the habit of releasing far
toom much (any old noisy jam session will do it seems) regardless of
quality- the last album I bought was "Electric Heavyland" which I felt was
just an inferior rehash of their usual ingredients. But your AMT choices
are interesting, as "In C" is easily my favourite of the albums I've heard,
but I've never heard La Novia, (though I've heard the title track performed
live a few times), so I'm wondering whether I should check that one out,
despite deciding a while ago that I really didn't need any more AMT albums.

Another question- Amon Duul's "Psychedelic Underground"- where does this
fit into the Amon Duul I/II saga- is this the one that was recorded right
at the start before the split? How does it sound compared to Paradieswarts
Duul, say?

Thanks for stimulating some curiosity

Nick