Mg Art Germany レコード& CD

Review: 7 Up is three things; a ubiquitous energy drink brand, an infamous TV show charting the upbringing and development of various children from the ages of seven upwards, and the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel - their only collaborative piece with notorious psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary. Supposedly, the sprawling psych-Moog album was named after a bottle of 7 Up that had been spiked with LSD was given to the band's lyricist Brian Barritt. This new version contains the original manuscript of the album's concept by Leary, as well as photos from the recording session in Bern.

Review: Ash Ra Tempel are one of the undisputed totems of krautrock, and from their considerable legacy, Join Inn is one of their most important records. The line-up of the band in 1973 included Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching, who went on to become legends in their own right, but it was on pieces like the extended 'Freak'n'roll' and 'Jenseits' that they cemented their reputation as instrumental trailblazers, shattering the conventions of rock music and creating a new musical mode that still carries weight today. Getting the celebration in early, Gottsching's own Mg Art label are toasting 50 years since this landmark album came out with a shiny new reissue - much needed given the scant repressing Join Inn has had up until now.

Review: Ash Ra Tempel are something of a ground zero for the krautrock movement, and their 1971 debut album is the logical first step in exploring this profound, captivating world of sound. Made up an alarmingly youthful Manuel Gottsching, Klaus Schulze and Hartmut Enke, and recorded by the legendary Conny Plank, it's an expansive two-pronged excursion which takes psychedelic rock and plunges it into the possibilities of early electronic music with mesmerising results. This 50th anniversary edition has been put together with due care and attention by Gottsching's label MG Art, and it comes with additional posters, inlays and the informative manifesto of the band as written by Gottsching all those years ago.

Review: Manuel Gottsching's legendary solo material from the mid '70s onwards is finally being reissued the way it deserves; full picture-sleeves unlike those tacky bootlegs that have been knocking about over the years. Thanks to Germany's MG Art we can now appreciate this wondrous music in all its glory and, we have to say, that 2016 feels just right for this music to be resurfaced once again. This is the Ash Ra Tempel producer's first solo LP from 1975, and we can clearly hear the krautrock influence deep in the tracks. However, much like his later material, there's an element of the desolate and purely electronic, a medium with which hie experienced and flourished. The masterful "Echo Waves" opens with a fluttering landscape that could make for the ultimate opener to just bout any DJ set, and "Quasarsphere" comes through next with its gentle waves of ambient delight. All incredibly forward-thinking, of course. "Pluralis" edges closer to what we'd term 'balearic' these days, but without all the gimmicky elements and, instead, full of psychedelic wonder and zeitgeist. This is so hotly recommended...