New Ashra

After a prolific run in the 1970s, Manuel Göttsching's '80s output with Ash Ra Tempel was greatly reduced and the quality of his work was uneven: Belle Alliance flirted with contemporary synth pop with mixed results; E2-E4 proved influential, resonating with subsequent electronic artists; and the cheesy new age travelogue Tropical Heat dabbled in some of the decade's worst sonic clichés. Recorded in 1988, Walkin' the Desert struck a tasteful balance between Göttsching's experimental inclinations and a more mainstream techno sensibility. The album is an edited version of a performance given with Lutz Ulbrich in Berlin for the Desert Sounds event series (part of the Berlin: European Capital of Culture festival)…

A profile of Adam Ant's pop career, both solo and with his insect band. Tracks include 'Antmusic', 'Stand and Deliver', 'Goody Two Shoes' and Adam's 1990 comeback, 'Room at the Top'…

Along with Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel (later Ashra) was one of the first bands to convert the trippier side of late-'60s psychedelia into the kosmische rock of the '70s. Most Ash Ra titles were solely the work of Manuel Göttsching, plus any other additional players who happened to be around during the recording of his ten albums. Göttsching trained in classical guitar and studied improvisational music plus electronics at school. In 1970, he formed Ash Ra Tempel with no less than Klaus Schulze (fresh from a brief stint in Tangerine Dream) and Hartmut Enke. After a self-titled album in 1971, Schulze left for a solo career; Göttsching continued on with a variety of bandmembers and guests, including Timothy Leary on 1973's Seven Up (and Schulze again, for Join Inn).

E2-E4, released in 1984, is a solo recording by Ash Ra Tempel/Ashra guitarist Manuel Gottsching. The album consists of a minimalistic hour-long progressive electronic track that is subdivided into single tracks according to the stage of the song. The second half of the record is notable for Gottsching's guitar playing.
E2-E4, one of the few records Gottsching released under his own name, has earned its place as one of the most important, influential electronic records ever released…

Adelbert von Deyen is a relatively obscure electronic artist whose style is very similar to the famed Klaus Schulze, even down to the album covers! Rightfully so, he claims Schulze as his main influence. His career lasted from the late Seventies to the early to mid-Eighties. "Atmosphere", Adelbert von Deyen's third release, is the first album on which he starts to show his own musical style and direction rather than sounding like a clone of Klaus Schulze. The title track still has a strong Schulze influence but there are now unique touches and differences that distinguish this as Von Deyen's work. The result is a much more satisfying release than either "Sternzeit" or "Nordborg"…

This is a recording of the live concert held at Burg Herzberg Krautrock/Hippie festival from 7/15/99. A kind of Woodstock in Germany with a lot of bands. Sounding from psychedelic rock to Berlin school electronic. Release features one track each from seven different artists that played at the festival. A couple of really good cuts here include Ashra's (aka Ash Ra Temple) eighteen-minute "Twelve Samples" and the Hypnotix eleven-minute piece "Roots". Top of the line what many might refer to as new age/world music. The Dissidenten tune "Instinctive Traveler" hit sort of like a Gong wanna be. Tunes here from Sunya Beat, Edgar Broughton, Caravan and Might As Well are so-so.

The rising tide just does not stop. Why would it? The same thing goes for Blind Ego. What seemed like an interaction of progressive and avant-gardistic fever dreams has grown into one of Germany's full-blown rock powerhouses that makes it's way in a manner that is as perfectly precise as it is mercilessly consequent…

Nowadays, the warm tones of a Berlin School EM style becomes more and more flooded in an enormous musical cornucopia where technologies and numeric (digital) equipments strip a bit the nobility of this art finely exploited in the 70's by artists innovative and extremely creative such as Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese and his cult band Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre as well as Ashra Temple. Today, artists like Ian Boddy, Mark Shreeve, Remy, Marcel Engles, Gert Emmens, Mario Schonwalder and many more are still exploiting this sonority of former days, but with a mixture of new technologies, creating hybrid sonority where soft steams of a retro Berlin School are next to a more technical, more updated tone…