Ash Ra Tempel: Le Berceau De Cristal

ASH RA TEMPEL: LE BERCEAU DE CRISTAL (1975; 1993)

1) Le Berceau De Cristal; 2) L'Hiver Doux; 3) Silence Sauvage; 4) Le Sourire Volé; 5) Deux Enfants Sous La Lune; 6) Le Songe D'Or; 7) Le Diable Dans La Maison; 8) ...Et Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi.

As a post-scriptum, it might be useful to mention this hour-long soundtrack, recorded by Gött­sching in 1975 with the assistance of Lutz Ulbrich, but still under the moniker of Ash Ra Tempel, even if its purely electronic, ambient nature was far closer to the style of «Ashra», or even Manu­el's solo projects. But what's in a name? Nothing but the ability to save your brain from exploding — and why would a respectable Krautrock artist want to do that?

Anyway, Le Berceau De Cristal is some sort of crap avantgarde movie by the French filmmaker Philippe Garrel. Apparently, it stars Nico in the title role, with a special guest appearance by Keith Richards' witchy girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, and if that alone is not enough to confirm the movie's unwatchability, try and find an overall description on the Net — apparently, Zabriskie Point looks like The Godfather in comparison. Fortunately, we are not here to talk movies.

Göttsching's soundtrack is historically important in that it is only his second venture ever into the realm of pure atmospherics, after his solo album Inventions For Electric Guitar, and, in fact, is even less dynamic and more trance-inducing than the former, being a direct precursor to New Age Of Earth. Thus, it will be useless to concentrate on a separate review: everything I wrote about New Age, more or less, applies here as well. The only difference is that New Age strives for a more «global» sound, one that preserves the cosmic rock aspirations of Ash Ra Tempel, but materializes them through pure electronic means. Berceau, being a soundtrack to a movie about one woman and her psychotic activity (or something), is less expansive, somewhat darker, gloo­mier, colder... in fact, I can very well hear Nico, in my imagination, deliver her stern Teutonic lines across Göttsching's synths — it is sort of reassuring to realize that I have a magnificent op­portunity to never, ever do it in reality.

Actually, there is quite a bit of guitar playing on this album, mainly processed through lots of electronic warp, but saving the record from total monotonousness. Once you have sat through the first two epic ambient monsters, you start getting modest rhythms, bass loops, jangly echo-laden chord sequences, and, on the very last track, even a «diabolic» distorted guitar solo (short one). So it is not merely a sequence of snowy landscapes and Gothic panoramas. But fairly close. Re­commended for completists, historians, Nico's ex-lovers, and all those who think that mysterious French titles suit electronic compositions much better than pedestrian English ones.

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Ash Ra Tempel: Gin Rose At The Royal Albert Hall

ASH RA TEMPEL: GIN ROSÉ AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL (2000)

1) Eine Pikante Variante.

I think that the following is going to be quite close to a thoroughly objective recommendation: Do not go for this one before hearing Friendship, and only go for this one if you found something in Friendship that I failed to find. And even then, do not make the mistake of paying for it. Under any conditions, this album should count as a free bonus.

As the album title states, this is a live recording from the «reunited» Ash Ra Tempel (Göttsching and Schulze), made on April 2, 2000. After a brief announcement reminding us that they are play­ing together for the first time in thirty years (an implicit apology for ticket pricing?), the duo revs up their tape machines, straddles their keyboards and guitars, and goes on to play a non-stop single track for a bleeding sixty-nine minutes — yes, no track separation whatsoever, although, fourty minutes into the playing, they do actually make a stop for a few seconds.

'Eine Pikante Variante' is not exactly Friendship Live: most of the themes seem to crop up from time to time (especially 'Pikant' itself, with its memorable simplistic synth loop), but they are shuffled and mixed with other themes that are either new or stem from older Ash Ra Tempel or solo Göttsching/Schulze work and which, frankly, I do not care at all to track down. But the over­all vibe is exactly the same as on Friendship. Burbling ambient keyboards and moody trance guitar played over drum machines. For sixty-nine minutes.

Actually, the initial build-up is done masterfully. First, setting the scene up with «astral» blurps and bleeps, then slowly moving on to grumbling earthquakes, then subtly establishing an ambi­ent synthesizer backdrop, then moving on to minimalistic guitar flourishes and light percussion tap­ping, finally, by the twenty-minute mark, going all out with loud rhythms and moderately ag­gres­sive keyboard solos. But as it gets as good as it ever gets, for the next fourty minutes it's all rol­ling downhill. I can only hope they did play something else that night, or else I, for one, would be demanding my money back.

Biggest disappointment: Göttsching's final solo, his typical trade­mark on Ashra epics, lasts for something like three or four minutes out of sixty-nine. If that is not reason enough for a thumbs down, I do not know what is.

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Ash Ra Tempel: Friendship

ASH RA TEMPEL: FRIENDSHIP (2000)

1) Reunion; 2) Pikant; 3) Friendship.

A full-fledged collaboration between Göttsching and Klaus Schulze — so full-fledged, in fact, com­pared to Göttsching's relatively recent guest-starring on Schulze's In Blue, that the two deci­ded to go ahead and release it under the old moniker of Ash Ra Tempel. I have no reason to think of the decision as commercially-oriented — most of the people who'd care about a real reunion of the two, in 2000, would have to be either dead or such huge fans of Manuel and Klaus they'd sniff out the album even if it were credited to «Gothel and Rapunzel».

However, this does not sound much like «classic» Ash Ra Tempel. In fact, it does not sound much like the basic idea of Ash Ra Tempel, lest I be accused of requesting the gentlemen to des­cend into unabashed nostalgia. Ash Ra Tempel was a band that made solid use of electronics — the presence of an additional bass player and live drumming, in particular, was a must. Friend­ship is an electronic music record, with no bass at all and all the drumming strictly programmed, while Göttsching is overlaying his guitar lines almost in «guest» mode.

Considering that, by the year 2000, Schulze's solo career already numbered more than thirty ori­ginal al­bums (a typical bane for electronic artists), and that his most significant records had all been released in the mid-to-late Seventies, it would be imprudent to expect anything spectacular. And, rest assured, there is nothing spectacular on Friendship. It is a very long, very modest, very even collection of three rhythmic-ambient landscapes that, at best, sound nice, but we've all heard it many, many, many times before. Maybe it actually adds credit to these guys' reputation that they are not trying to replicate the tempestuous aggressive atmosphere of Ash Ra Tempel's early years, concentrating exclusively on the «pensive» side — after all, when you are in your fifties, trying to be the Mick Jagger of electronics may even look more ridiculous than simply trying to be Mick Jagger, period. But the down side of this «graceful aging» is... YAAAAWN.

'Reunion', for a merciless thirty minutes, burdens you with a soft, steady, R&B-ish percussion groove over which Schulze spreads his walls of humming noise and simple synthesizer loops, while Manuel keeps coming and going with very minimalistic playing, sometimes hardly distin­guished at all from the synthesizer backing. 'Pikant' is different only in that it is a wee bit faster; hangs continuously upon one repetitive electric organ-like loop; and has a brief interlude with Göttsching picking some rather generic Spanish guitar for us.

Only the title track may interest fans of Göttsching's playing: fabulously, it's a twenty-five minute long guitar solo, for which Schulze simply provides some atmospheric background. The first fif­teen minutes are completely rhythmless, before the electronic percussion enters to add some spice to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the solo is, at best, just «good»: melodic, yes, but restrained, and much too repetitive to build up any proper ground for catharsis. In fact, it sounds improvised — for an improvisation, it's a first-rate world-class solo, but it does not have much staying power. Plus, improvised guitar solos, in order to have any impact, should be produced differently. Dres­sing them up in sonic effects and echo does not help.

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Ash Ra Tempel: Starring Rosi

ASH RA TEMPEL: STARRING ROSI (1973)

1) Laughter Loving; 2) Day Dream; 3) Schizo; 4) Cosmic Tango; 5) Interplay Of Forces; 6) The Fairy Dance; 7) Bring Me Up.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that this album really «stars» Rosi Müller, who had already been in­troduced to the audience on the previous record and isn't exactly getting that much more prime time on here, except for serving as the band's only representative on the front sleeve. But the title is still not accidental. Starring Rosi was recorded in a transitional stage of upheaval: Schulze, as it turned out, was not interested in rejoining his old band on a permanent basis, after all, and, even worse, bassist Harmut Enke has also jumped ship, leaving Göttsching as the sole founding father of Ash Ra Tempel and the only one to decide whether the band had to live or die.

For a brief while, it had to live — but with Göttsching providing everything he could be able to provide. He rose up to the task, playing guitar and bass and all the electronic and non-electronic keyboards; only for the drumwork he had to resort to hiring an outside player (Harald Grosskopf). And, for some reason, this sudden shift in the levels of responsibility also brought about a signi­ficant change in sound — arguably the biggest single-moment change in sound Göttsching ever went through. A change so strange and utterly unexpected that no accusations of «selling out», «dumbing down», «softening up», etc., which the loyal Krautrock guard sometimes presses aga­inst the album, can really overshadow the plain old weirdness factor.

When 'Laughter Loving' begins with twenty seconds of psychedelically processed... laughter, this is something new (for Göttsching), but not particularly bewildering. Processed maniac laughter is stuff one should always be prepared to meet in «cosmic rock». But as the music kicks in, all of a sudden you realize yourself caught in the midst of a textbook Southern rock jam, with melodic country-folk guitar jamming loaded with the spirit of, say, Allman Brothers' 'Jessica' (which, by the way, had only just come out and, thus, could have easily inspired Göttsching, never an enemy to good old American roots-rock).

Actually, it is a very pleasing and soothing Southern rock jam, even if Göttsching's phrasing can hardly be expected to match the fluidity and ease of a Dickey Betts when it comes to playing this kind of music. And that's how it is with the rest of the record, which keeps moving from style to style without ever producing a single masterpiece, but always bringing on competence and con­tentedness, so that the sum of the parts eventually transgresses their individual worth.

Altogether, even if Rosi's laughter comes off as faux-mystical rather than cheerful, and the rest of her vocal contributions mostly consist of the same sternly delivered otherworldly monologs that distinguished 'Jenseits', the album is overall far more lively and optimistic than the end-of-the-world aura of 'Jenseits' itself. There is 'Day Dream', set in a minor tonality, dark, repetitive, rather simplistic folk with San Franciscan overtones, but its dark does not imply doomsday-dark. There is 'Schizo', with lots of piercing, high-pitched guitar wailing over wah-wah'd electronic bubbles, and multi-tracked banshees (Rosi again?) swooping from above, but that kind of music, too, is just telling you that there's danger around, not an imminent Ragnarök or anything.

There is even a bit of humor — as represented by 'Cosmic Tango', whose music perfectly mat­ches its title — and then, on Side B, almost all of the space is dedicated to harmless magic, cul­minating in 'The Fairy Dance', where Rosi strums a bit of harp and Manuel gives the semi-acous­tic, semi-electronic treatment to trusty old Celtic motives; quite an innovative track, when you come to think of it, considering how little Krautrock people in general usually paid attention to the traditions of their left-bank Gaulish neighbours.

There is no doubt that Starring Rosi is the most immediately accessible record in Ash Ra's cata­log, which does not at all make it, per se, the weakest Ash Ra record — since when have melody and diversity counted as weaknesses? Personally, I think it is a doggone pity that Göttsching him­self decided to pull the plug on this new direction so early, afraid, perhaps, of losing his artistic integrity; his subsequent deep plunge into Electronica had its payoff of beautiful moments, but this here is some fairly exciting, untapped turf for practicing musical synthesis, whereas in the realm of pure electronics the man had himself some strong competition.

I am also completely unaware of what happened to Rosi Müller. Since she is said to have been Manuel's girlfriend, it is possible that the whole point here was to offer her a unique sort of love song. Perhaps they simply broke up somewhere around 1974, with personal problems leading to further musical changes — I was not able to find out. Whatever really happened, it's a really nice record, and a really nice example of how positive feelings towards someone can result in musical magic rather than musical cornball. Not to mention that I'd much rather listen to Rosi Müller speaking over a mu­sical piece than to, say, Yoko Ono singing over one. Thumbs up, for one of the most «atypical swan songs» in a band's career — even if, on a substantial level, it would be more correct to think of Join Inn as the last true «Ash Ra Tempel» record, and interpret Starring Rosi as a time-filling side project in between Ash Ra Tempel's cosmic rock and Ashra's... umm, cosmic soup.

Ash Ra Tempel: Join Inn

ASH RA TEMPEL: JOIN INN (1973)

1) Freak 'n' Roll; 2) Jenseits.

This is the first Ash Ra Tempel album I'd heard, many years ago, at a time when satisfying all your desires in chronological order was nowhere near as easy as today — and it is nice to realize, now, how much of a right impression it gave me of the band. Because it may not be as ground­breaking as the self-titled debut, but it is every bit as impressive: a conscious and successful at­tempt, after the last couple of decidedly mixed efforts, to recapture everything that was so mind-cracking about Ash Ra in the first place.

To that purpose, Klaus Schulze returns to the fold once again, contributing drums and electronics just like in the good old days. Also like in the good old days, the album's two long pieces are neat­ly split into one dynamic and one static side, brutally kicking ass for 19 minutes and then subtly soothing it for 24 more. Unlike the good old days, side B also has one more human addition: Rosi Müller, contributing dreamy spoken sibyl-style vocals. But I wouldn't say this harms the procee­dings in any way. How can a pretty girl with a sweet/stern voice be harmful? We're not talking of a Yoko Ono here.

Not that either side truly attempted to be a clone of its correlate on Ash Ra Tempel. For starters, 'Freak'n'Roll' is a bit less psychotic than 'Amboss'. With its out-of-nowhere fade-in, it sounds like a no-beginning, no-end extract from a much larger improvisation, which must have been much less pre-planned than 'Amboss', and thus, has a more live feel to it. Göttsching's guitar is generally higher in the mix, sharper and bluesier, and the rhythm section of Schulze and Enke is more interested in exploring all the possible polyrhythmic combinations than in raising hell. In short, if 'Amboss', with certain reservations, could be said to be the Krautrock equivalent of a vo­calless jam by The Who, 'Freak'n'Roll' is closer in feel to the psychedelic improvs of Cream circa 1967 — just add some keyboards.

The lengthier 'Jenseits', meanwhile, is different from 'Träummaschine' because it invokes a so­lemn mourning atmosphere, almost something like a cosmic requiem — great funebral music for an important alien chief, who bravely gave up his life, trying to protect his people from de­tri­mental radio waves conveying Osmonds and Bay City Rollers hits into open space. Schulze is re­sponsible for most of the sound on the track, playing organ and «synthi A», with Göttsching ad­ding drone-like guitar that has also been processed to receive a more keyboardish sound. The re­sults can be classified as ambient — there are very few well-noticeable transitions, mostly having to do with shift of emphasis from one instrument to another — and this gives one a great opportu­nity to bitch about the length, but why should we? Had they cut it down by five or six minutes, they still wouldn't be using that space up to replace it with anything different, because that would ruin the concept. If you think 24 minutes takes us off limits, no one prevents you from fading the track out after 20 or 15 of them.

All of which literally translates into this: Join Inn comes across as a slightly less psychedelic, slightly more pure-musical experience. Free-form, muscular improvisation on one side and a so­lemn mess in the Gothic Cathedral of Krautrock on the other, with each member of the band fully up to the task and cooking. Thumbs up.

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