Ashra: @shra + @shra Vol. 2

ASHRA: @SHRA + @SHRA VOL. 2 (1998/2002)

1) Echo Waves; 2) Twelve Samples; 3) Timbuktu; 4) Niemand Lacht Rückwärts; 5) Sunrain; 6) Four Guitars; 7) Hausaufgabe; 8) Oasis; 9) Move 9 Up.

Strictly speaking, these are two different albums, released subsequently in 1998 and 2002, and thus, should be given different reviews. But there are at least three combined reasons for which they deserve to constitute an exception. (1) All of the material is taken from the same set of To­kyo and Osaka live shows, from the band's Japanese tour in February 1997; (2) All of the mate­rial on @shra, with the exception of 'Timbuktu', duplicates the setlist on Sauce Hollandaise, so there is little sense in reviewing it separately; (3) Both albums were eventually combined into one 2CD set, released in 2008, so we can pretend they never existed as separate entities in the first place.

To these three reasons, add a fourth: I really have no good idea on what could be said about these albums that hasn't already been said before. There is one significant change from the sound of Sauce which I do not appreciate: the percussion, most of the time, is electronic, resulting in a much more «generic techno»-oriented sound. Why this is so, despite the fact that the band still has Harold Grosskopf at its full disposal, is beyond me. Maybe they just thought that the «Land Of The Rising Sun», with its penchant for all things robo-related, would appreciate a more mech­a­nized sound than the folks in Holland, who supposedly like it «jazzier». (Wild, wild guesses). In any case, if the idea was to get more hip with the times, it could only help in the short run — in the long one, Sauce Hollandaise will always be more recommendable than @shra.

On the positive side, the basic recording quality here is a tad higher than on Sauce: Göttsching's solos, e. g. on 'Echo Waves', are less echoey, more shrill, and rise more notably above the mix than they did before — always laudable, because atmosphere and trance is one thing, but at the bottom of it, first and foremost, we all come back to Ashra to hear these wall-rattling solos. This is why the addition of the eight-minute long lightweight safari-style 'Timbuktu' to @shra does little to improve its status — no solos!

The second disc has a number of tracks whose titles I do not recognize (some may be new, some may be reworkings of Göttsching's solo album tracks), plus an extended version of 'Four Guitars' from Walkin' The Desert — and yes, somehow they work up these samplers to replicate all the necessary guitar parts (don't ask me how they manage it technically, I'm the least close person in the world to a techno buff). The setlist cleverly alternates between soft, mood-setting pieces ('Sun­rain', 'Oasis') and harder, darker stuff ('Hausaufgabe', 'Move 9 Up'); 'Move 9 Up', in particu­lar, is a guitar monster, starting off in an Ashra-generic «echo-wave» form and then going off into speedy, punchy, aggressive hard rock mode; unlike other tracks, where Göttsching would emerge with a solo climax only towards the very end, 'Move 9 Up' is carried on by guitar fireworks for all of its 14 minutes, clearly making it the highlight of Vol. 2.

Overall, if you can stand a little «umtsa-umtsa» in your life without blushing, or, vice versa, if you are not offended by your umtsa-umtsa in the hands of fifty-year old farts, @shra is yet ano­ther example of one of Germany's most intelligent gifts to the art of sound incapable of any wrong moves. As for myself, all I can say is — any electronic album that goes on for two hours without forcing me to start climbing up walls is okay by me, so a thumbs up it is.

Ashra: Sauce Hollandaise

ASHRA: SAUCE HOLLANDAISE (1998)

1) Echo Waves; 2) Twelve Samples; 3) Niemand Lacht Rückwärts.

Late-period Ashra albums are more of a cult thing than anything else — but don't let that stop you from knowing that these old masters, even in an age when the ownership of «Electronica» had es­sentially passed on to an entirely new generation of select arrogant revolutionaries and swarming talentless hacks, were still able to kick some classic ass.

This here is the regular Ashra lineup (Göttsching, Ulbrich, and Grosskopf), augmented by Steve Baites on sampling and rhythm machines, playing live at the KLEMDag fest in Nijmegen, appa­rently one of those hot spots for cool electronic people who hate living in the past and are not af­raid to boldly proclaim it to each other. That said, when Ashra takes the stage, all these people are still forced to live in the past, if only for a little bit — leave it to the genius of Göttsching to be able to sound modernistic and trendy, and yet still convey the spirit of the 1970s at the same time.

Leave it to his genius, too, to come up with three titles, two of them running over twenty minutes and one over thirty, and make it not sound like overkill. Two components are crucial: rhythm, which only occasionally switches to «generic» techno, and is otherwise based on fairly traditional beats (not the least because a real live drummer is present), and build-up, which has always been Ash Ra Tempel's, and then Ashra's, greatest know-how. On a certain level, the thirty minutes of 'Echo Waves' end right at the same spot where they started, but on another level, it is a track that emulates growth and development, and by the time the thirty minutes are over, you've become a thirty years older. Figuratively.

Musically, 'Echo Waves' is all about... echo waves — like a long long tribute to 'Run Like Hell'. It is melodically simplistic and trivial; the fabulous thing is how this triviality keeps reproduced, over and over, on different instruments, with various tones and pitches, and how the band mem­bers steer these waves around each other, now interlocking, now coming apart, now with a slight delay, now with a slight speed-up. Twenty-five minutes pass that way before Göttsching picks the guitar up properly and delivers a mind-blowing «classic rock» solo. Is it «overkill»? Perhaps, but I feel that the trance-inducing goals of the track have been fulfilled. Once they catch you up on their «echo waves», the sense of time becomes blurred, and it may well be that many a person has emerged from this experience with a whiff of surprise, as in, «how come my beard is an inch lon­ger than I last remember it?»...

The lengthy version of 'Twelve Samples' from Walkin' The Desert is now stripped of its vocal overdubs (I like it better this way, actually), and gains a bit in energy and an almost carnivalesque attitude, particularly towards the end. The third track is more of a showcase for the drummer (in­cluding a long nearly-solo passage), but also picks up steam towards the end with another wall-rattling solo and a crazy noisy race-towards-the-end. Neither is as grand an undertaking as 'Echo Waves', hence the relative «shortness», yet both are still atmospheric monsters in their own right.

Although all three of these would be later reprised on @Shra, making the acquisition somewhat redundant, Sauce Hollandaise still stands out on its own. For the live shows of @Shra, the band would be adopting a more techno-oriented sound; here, the keyboards sound, on the whole, live­lier and juicier, and the human-dominated drumming is a major plus as well. This arguably makes the album the most representative and the most enjoyable Ashra experience in the 1990s, so how could it not get a massive thumbs up?

Ashra: Tropical Heat

ASHRA: TROPICAL HEAT (1991)

1) Mosquito Dance; 2) Tropical Heat; 3) Pretty Papaya; 4) Nights In Sweat; 5) Don't Stop The Fan; 6) Monsoon.

For Ashra, the Nineties began with showing us that the Eighties did, after all, exist. Tropical Heat was not released until the dawn of the grunge revolution, but was actually recorded in 1985 and 1986. And it shows. If Göttsching and Co. were a bit too slow to catch on all the latest trends and developments of the club scene, I certainly do not blame them; but Tropical Heat is that one Ashra album for which the use of the term «dated» can only be with a negative twist.

First of all, that is a cheesy album title, and it leads to even cheesier song titles. A mood album about lonesome walks in the desert will, at the very least, bring on visions of Peter O'Toole's blue eyes, but an album called Tropical Heat will, at best, bring on visions of tourist ads. Furthermore, what's the use of building a concept like that on a bedrock of MIDI controllers and similar stuff? How well guaranteed is it that an album like this, lightweight by definition, will turn out to be pleasant to all sorts of ears at all sorts of times, if every now and then you get the feeling that you are listening to a soundtrack for Sexy Beach?

With next to no guitar (except some rather generic Spanish chords on 'Don't Stop The Fan'), big stupid drum machines, and robotic keyboards all along the way, this is not the kind of Ashra you will want to hear if, like me, you have already tipped your hat to their «classic» albums. It is not atrocious, because a lot of work went into it anyhow, and Göttsching, an obsessive perfectionist, would never release an album «just for the money», unless he would be sure it had some value. Each track has its own «tropical» groove, sometimes more than one, and the arrangements are complex enough to ensure that there is always some part to which your ear may latch on without being offended. Yet it still ends up being offended — always.

Thus, the funky arrangement of 'Nights In Sweat', with jangling guitar and pompous fanfares, is the coolest combination on the album; but it is almost killed off by electronic percussion and excessive length. The «Mellotron»-like cooing waves of sound on 'Mosquito Dance' are trance-inducing and lovely, but they only come in very late, on top of all the other keyboard waves of sounds, not worth mentioning — and so on.

In short, Tropical Heat is an okay record that is badly in need of re-recording; it is a bit puzzling, in fact, why Göttsching did not take the chance to re-record it — I am fairly sure that, by 1991, Ashra could make use of far more advanced production techniques than they had at their disposal in the disastrous season of 1985/86. But that's the way it happened, so a thumbs down is im­minent. Final opinion — if you are looking for one Ashra album to skip, skip Tropical Heat. Donate your money to starving Somali pirates instead.

Check "Tropical Heat" (CD) on Amazon

Ashra: Walkin' The Desert

ASHRA: WALKIN' THE DESERT (1989)

1) 1st Movement: Two Keyboards; 2) 2nd Movement: Six Voices; 3) 3rd Movement: Four Guitars; 4) 4th Move­ment: Twelve Samples; 5) Dessert: Eight Tracks.

After a decade spent doing nothing or nearly nothing, interrupted only by the recording of the acclaimed solo album E2-E4, in 1988, Göttsching eventually reteemed with Lutz Ulbrich, and the results of their rather lengthy collaboration (date of recording is given as «May 1988 – Spring 1989») were deemed successful enough to be released as the next Ashra album. Much of it stems from the reworking of a large 65-minute suite performed live on June 4th, 1988 at the Berlin Pla­netarium, but a large chunk had to be cut out to fit on one LP — perhaps for the better.

Walkin' The Desert is certainly not bad, but it does sound a bit like the title suggests: listening to it is about as much fun as walking through a desert. Basically, if you have a long way to go through the desert and not go crazy from the process, you have to train your mind to recognize the desert as a colorful, inspirational place to be. Listening to ambient music is different in that you do not usually have to listen to ambient music (unless Brian Eno has promised you unlimited access to his porn collection in exchange for a set of glowing reviews). Thus, it is all to easy to just put on Walkin' The Desert and say: «Oh no, not another Göttsching album without any kick ass guitar solos!» and back out, pleased to feel indignantly offended, much as I did upon my first listen to New Age Of Earth.

But, although this record is hardly a masterpiece, to my ears, it sounds far more intriguing and unu­su­al than New Age. First, it is thematically coherent. The «movements» are not just an at­tempt at adding pseudo-academic «respectability» to the overall experience — they really repre­sent several different, yet interconnected mood states that one could... well, not necessarily lite­rally associate with «deserts», but with vast, seemingly empty spaces; the more you stare at them, the more kaleidoscopic they become before your eyes. Lots of ambient loops are simply used as tasty (or tasteless) background decorations; the point of the loops on Desert is to transform your background and make it float before, or behind, your eyes. That goal may not be reached on all the tracks, but at least all the tracks strive to reach it.

Second, there are some nifty individual ideas. The 'Two Keyboards' part is almost funny: it's like some sort of Chopin prelude that caught stuck in its first few bars and lost the capacity to evolve into anything beyond those bars, but is frantically struggling — for eight minutes — to get out of its cage anyway. 'Four Guitars' uses the experience that Göttsching and Ulbrich developed in their «disco days» to ground a minimalistic space-rock set of melodies and effects on a funky founda­tion, but without any signs of a rhythm section, so you cannot as much dance to it as you can... uh... quaver and wobble, I guess. And 'Twelve Samples', each and every one of them, incorporate some Middle Eastern motive, with a lengthy prayer topping it off and getting a nice processed treatment — sounds like an underwater minaret experience. (It does get a bit annoying after the first couple of minutes, though, and becomes well worth a haraam after the second one — why it had to be the longest track on the album, we'll never know).

Finally, for «dessert», you actually get a magnificent echoey Göttsching solo, grand, eloquent, and ag­gres­sive, the way we like it (although the MIDI tones on 'Eight Tracks' could have been less bla­tantly Eighties-style). As much as it looks like a consolatory gift for those who felt them­selves let down, the rest of the album is by far the most interesting non-guitar-centered opus of Manuel's career — a well-placated thumbs up here.

Check "Walkin' The Desert" (CD) on Amazon

Ashra: Belle Alliance

ASHRA: BELLE ALLIANCE (1980)

1) Wudu; 2) Screamer; 3) Boomerang; 4) Aerogen; 5) Sausalito; 6) Kazoo; 7) Code Blue; 8) Mistral.

Another goodie-goodie. With the «disco sucks» movement in full blossom mode, Göttsching de­ci­­ded to cut down on the easy-to-ridicule aspects of his newfound accessible sound, and Ashra's follow-up to the hot funky grooves of Correlations came out in a colder, sterner, but still quite «toe-tappable» casing, which, this time around, took good hard notice of various New Wave-re­la­ted happenings. Quite content now with following trends rather than setting them, Belle Alliance still set out another good example of how to follow trends in style, instead of unveiling yourself as a pitiful lapdog, whining for a bite, or, rather, for a buck.

The album, sort of returning to the old Ash Ra Tempel tradition, consists of a «hard» and «soft» side, which few people will be able to enjoy in equal doses. Predictably, my sympathies strongly veer to the «hard» side, with an overall irresistible punch, lots of stylistic diversity, and some ter­rific guitar soloing. 'Screamer', in particular, is a heck of a screamer, chasing along at super speed like a respectable punk number (there is even a «chainsaw buzz»-style rhythm guitar track) with some accompanying mock-shouting, until midway through it gives way to Göttsching's flashy astral-rock guitar, sometimes issuing bursts of speedy psychedelic licks, sometimes melting in a sea of distor­tion and feedback, more often doing both at the same time. (Should be listened to at top volume in headphones; chances are the ground will disappear from under your feet).

Following it up, 'Boomerang' may be one of the finest examples of guitar playing over a reggae rhythm base — especially since Manuel changes keys several times throughout the track, going from Caribbean to pop-rock to country-blues stylistics and back. But the best build-up is on 'Ae­ro­gen', which begins as a set of electronic loops, then slowly grows itself a funky foundation, and finally becomes a lightning-speed rock anthem with a crisp, fiery rock'n'roll solo. All of these are simply exemplary examples of intelligently imagined kick-ass instrumental pop music — in my humble opinion (but don't tell anyone), beating out quite a few much better known «masterpie­ces» of fusion, Santana-rock, and suchlike.

Side B is mainly dominated by the snowy majesty of 'Code Blue', whose primary «gimmick» con­sists of gradually, almost unnoticeably, transforming from a pre-Bach-oriented church organ instrumental into a contemporary electronic ambient landscape. The landscape has some dynamic aspects to it — over time, Manuel adds extra synth layers and percussion — but overall, little change is in vogue until the track, without interruption, seagues into the optimistic/romantic coda of 'Mistral', where Göttsching's guitar is eventually used in the spirit of Santana (but, of course, with Manuel's own playing technique). All of it constantly goes from pretty to majestic or vice versa, but suffers from the usual flaws of ambient — too thin density of cool ideas per minute to let you override the drowsiness effect. Will certainly be your favourite of the two sides, though, if you are one of the drowsy types.

Altogether, the album is such an obvious thumbs up that Göttsching's subsequent decision to pull the plug on Ashra as a studio team (he still continued touring with Ulbrich and Grosskopf for some time after that) is quite surprising. Ashra's official site claims that the man was «fed up with the corporate music industry business» — quite odd for someone whose albums never showed the least sign of the music industry business people's interfering or tampering with any of his work. (Unless, of course, it eventually turns out that it was the record industry people who forced him to turn to funk and disco in 1979 — for which I'd like to thank the record industry people).

What­ever be the real reason, nothing further was heard from Ashra throughout most of the decade — then again, considering that the decade was the 1980s, perhaps we should not feel too sorry about that. In any case, the German musical scene at the time was not the best place to behold. Just imagine a collaboration between Ashra and... uh... Modern Talking?

Check "Belle Alliance" (CD) on Amazon