Manuel Gottsching’s Ash Ra Tempel – Inventions for Electric Guitar

Manuel Göttsching’s first solo effort, Inventions for Electric Guitar, is better known as Ash Ra Tempel VI. Released in 1975, this album occupies a peculiar place in the pantheon of krautrock sonic explorations.

Göttsching’s performance and recording experience with Ash Ra Tempel – as well as his contributions to projects such as Seven Up and Tarot (with Timothy Leary and Walter Wegmüller respectively) – set the groundwork for the intricate interweavings that characterize Inventions for Electric Guitar. With this album, Göttsching discovered commonalities between his own work and that of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, whom he met in the mid-1970s. This is spellbinding Kosmische Musik with subtle progressive undertones.

Inventions for Electric Guitar carries within itself the infinite possibilities of the cosmos – excerpt below.

pluralis

“The incredible career of the electric guitar since the beginning of rock’n roll times and my personal experiences on that instrument within the last six years gave me the possibility to lead the guitar to a new way of performance – electronic music.” – Manuel Göttsching

(Music, effects and sounds are played with electric guitar only. Recorded in July and August of 1974 at Studio Roma in Berlin.)