Customer Reviews

Schwingungen / Seven-Up

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Formed by guitarist Manuel Gottsching, bassist Hartmut Enke, and former Tangerine Dream drummer/keyboardist Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel were, along with the underrated Guru Guru,the quintessential German power trio. Their debut lp was an instrumental tour de force, and a must have in any psychedelic collection.

By the time their 2nd lp, "Schwinungen," was released, change was occurring in the band. Schulze left temporarly to record his groundbreaking debut lp, "Irrlicht," a staple of synth music, as was his follow-up lp, the amazing "Cyborg." Vocalist John L, recently sacked from Agitation Free, another important German band, joined the ranks of Ash Ra.

"Schwinungen" is an amazing lp, a mix between "Saucerful of Secrets" era Floyd and "Funhouse" era Stooges. The playing is intense, pyschedelic, laid back, beautiful- all at once. John L's vocals are frenzied at moments, incredibly soothing at others. The lp flows from rock to amazingly slow burning acid freak outs... the descriptions are rather contradictory, but then again, so is the lp..a treasure.

Schulze rejoined the band soon after, and John L would be sacked by Gottsching for being too drugged up and way too weird. Taking into consideration the state of the German acid rock scene at this time, one can only imagine just how out there John L. was.

At this time, acid guru Timothy Leary, in exile from the US, was in Germany and Switzerland, and was making music. The drugs were all the reason Ash Ra Tempel and many Kosmische ("comsic", a term used for many bands of the day) bands needed to go to the feet of the master head himself..The results of jam after acid soaked jam were several lps- Walter Wegmueller's "Tarot"(complete with Tarot cards), Sergius Golowin's "Lord Krishna von Gologa," several lps (5 in all)by the jam band that became known as the Cosmic Jokers, as well as others by Wallenstein, and "Seven-Up," the sometimes over the top jams by Ash Ra Tempel and Leary.

To say the least, the results are bizarre, loose jams, with Leary adding his own brand of lyrics to the music..easily dismissable and laughable, the jams are a wonderful look into the time and place it all happened..invaluable.

The 2 lps are not as strong as Tempel's amazing debut, but nevertheless classic gems of German psychedelic music at its most out there.

What can I say here? Well, I think both Schwingungen and Seven Up are rather underrated, compared with Ash Ra Tempel's wonderful 1971 debut. I think the reason for that is these two features vocals, which might throw many off, but I think both are simply incredible. By this point, of course, Klaus Schulze left, to pursue his solo career. Guitarist Manuel Göttsching and bassist Hartmut Enke recruited a new drummer named Wolfgang Müller, as well as vocalist John L., and a saxist, giving Schwingungen a somewhat more jazzy bent. John L's vocals are definately an acquired taste and if you don't have a problem with Can's Malcolm Mooney, you won't have a problem with John L's, as his vocals reminds me of Mooney's. He does tend to scream out of tune a lot, so if you want nice vocals, you won't find it here. The somewhat jazzy influence can be found on "Flower Must Die", because of Müller's jazzy drumming and the sax. The album then ends with "Suche & Liebe", which is this album's "Traummaschine", more or less. The first half consists mainly of vibraphone and spooky organ, while the second half is more or less like Pink Floyd, with great spacy guitar from Manuel Göttsching himself. For their following album, Seven Up, the band found themselves a new drummer, and former Tangerine Dream guy Steve Schroyder (who played on TD's Alpha Centauri and guested on Zeit) and five different vocalists. None other than Timothy Leary makes an appearance here! He was in exile in neighboring Switzerland, but since the band couldn't get Leary in to Germany, the band recorded this album in Switzerland. As you might guess, this is one truly radical album! The first half of the album contains several blues songs ("Downtown", "Right Hand Lover", and "Velvet Genes") and a killer jam ("Power Drive") and in between all that is a wall of relentless electronic effects and noise. If you can imagine an unholy alliance of the blues and the more twisted moments of Can's Tago Mago (like "Aumgn") then you're not too far off. The second half of the album simply consists of a three movement suite called "Time" which is more conventional Ash Ra Tempel, that is not playing blues songs, and venturing more in to early Klaus Schulze/Tangerine Dream territory. This is another incredible gem of space rock, and part of this is a re-recording of "Suche & Liebe". To me, I think these two album are not to be overlooked, regardless of what might be said of these albums, I think they're incredible. If you don't mind the band venturing in to the blues sometimes, and you don't mind the vocals, you're sure to enjoy this.

Two Ash Ra Tempel CDs return with all new 24-bit Digitally Remastered versions on one double CD, enhancing the beauty of these timeless recordings.

Two albums recorded in 1972 by Manuel Gottsching, the Godfather of "Krautrock" - the German brand of 70's progressive rock. Stylistically similar they are a living proof that progressive rock was not all Pink Floyd or King Crimson. For the "Seven Up" album Manuel invited the psychodelia icon Timothy Leary who wrote album's lyrics and contributed vocal. The beautiful eclectic music takes the listener on the journey through space and time. It is a wonderful mix of electronic sound and rock guitar. A must for any progressive rock fan!

About as good as the other 2-fer-1 CD release of theirs,'Join Inn/Starring Rosi'(see my review).Both these 'Schwingungen' and 'Seven Up' titles were originally put out on vinyl in 1972.They were ART's second and third efforts.Good early '70's krautrock as expected.Two best tracks here are the eleven minute "Light And Darkness-Flowers Must Die" and the twenty-one minute,seven part epic "Space Downtown" that was co-written by Timothy Leary.What more could you ask for?Nice to pull out for a spin time and again.

Having played my vinyl originals of these albums almost to destruction over the decades, I was delighted to find this CD version. Two magnificent albums, both classics of their genre, for the price of one CD. What more could you ask for? Well, we'll come back to that in a minute or so.

First the music. Schwingungen - probably my favourite Ash Ra Tempel album, opens with the utterly sublime Look at Your Sun. This is a towering psychedelic tour de force, building gently with the most beautifully laid-back guitar and bass and lyrics of a direct intense simplicity ("I look out my window and see the blue sky", "and I know, we are all one"), through the maniacally frantic central section and then back to the classic Gottsching lonely guitar sound as the track drifts away. Flowers Must Die is a stunning trippy powerhouse of a song belted out by a manic John L who sounds totally out of his tree. In places vaguely Hawkwind-ish, the overall feel of this track is almost punk/new wave and therefore years ahead of its time. The extended third track, Schwingungen (Vibrations) covered the entire second side of the original album and is a brilliant example of the definitive Ash Ra Tempel cosmic/ambient sound. Significantly hypnotic and mood-changing, it is not recommended to listen to this while you're driving! The sleeve notes on the original album said something like "You're not hearing this music for the first time - you are recognising it once more" and you will understand what is meant when you listen to this. That classic Ash Ra Tempel chord sequence (later reprised in the Time sequence on the Seven Up album) does seem to grab you at a visceral or primordial level and, once heard, will be with you for ever.

On to Seven Up. This rather strange collaboration with drugs guru Timothy Leary has been dismissed by some as overly gimmicky and not up to usual Ash Ra Tempel standards. It does, in my humble opinion, still have much to offer though.

Downtown opens the proceedings in funky, bluesy style and shows how this legendary band could effectively traverse genres at the drop of a hat. Power Drive and Right Hand Lover sound like almost conventional pop/rock songs (albeit with most unconventional lyrical themes!) with Gottsching showing he can rock it with the best of 'em when he wants to, before Velvet Genes gives us a more abstract Krautrock-ish intro that soon metamorphoses back into some blues riffs before reprising Downtown. The long track Time, which covered the whole of the second side of the original album, returns to the classic Ash Ra Tempel 'kosmische' sound, reprising the seminal chord-sequence first heard on Schwingungen, but with the Timothy Leary voiceover. As a great example of beautiful, trippy, ambient, hypnotic mood-changing music, I like it. Lots.

This is, perhaps, not the best album to listen to as an introduction to this most mercurial of bands (better to go for Schwingungen, Join Inn or the eponymous first album), but is still a very worthwhile effort and highly recommended.

The sheer magnificence of this music, that I simply could not get enough of in my teenage years, precludes me from giving anything less than five stars. I must just add a comment or two about the CD presentation however. Firstly, the packaging is minimal - apart from minuscule reproductions of the album front covers, none of the original artwork, photos or sleeve notes has survived this transformation from vinyl to CD. As I still possess my treasured originals, this doesn't bug me too much though. Secondly, and more seriously though, the sound quality appears less than perfect in places. Overall, it sounds more bassy than the original recordings and thus, Manuel Gottsching's soaring trademark lonely guitar sound feels slightly swamped and less prominent than it should be (most noticeably on Look at Your Sun). Whether this is due to the compression process that shoe-horned well over 70 minutes of music onto one CD, I don't know. Any decent sound system with graphic equaliser should be able to compensate to some degree for this though and, as I appreciate that this is the best I'm going to get until these musical masterpieces are genuinely and sympathetically re-mastered for CD, I'm not going to let it spoil my enjoyment.

Existing Ash Ra Tempel fans will surely not be able to resist this, and those of you yet to experience this music will not regret letting it into your lives!

Of the two albums presented here SCHWINGUNGEN (it means "vibrations" or "oscillations" if anyone asks) gets the slight nod. The band's first album (ASH RA TEMPEL) was better, probably because it was all instrumental and with only two (very) long tracks. SCHWINGUNGEN tries for being more visceral- -vocals and more structure, you see- -but falls flat as their lack is what made ASH RA TEMPEL so great. It does have its moments, though. Had I been there, and I'm glad I wasn't, I would have said "better luck next time." Unfortunately the next time happened to be SEVEN-UP, about which the less said the better. If they were gonna let T Leary preside over the live bit (tres hippy-chic!) then they should have told him to just sit down, fer cryin' out loud, and keep his trap shut. It doesn't work, even as comedy- -and they were dead serious. Come to think of it, maybe they were having a little joke on the good Doctor at the audience's expense. Either way it's laughable.