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).
By 1975,
Göttsching had released his first solo album (
Inventions for Electric Guitar) and though
Ashra returned the following year, the next two records by the "group" were
Göttsching-only albums, the brilliant
New Age of Earth in 1976 and
Blackouts one year later. For the 1980s, most
Ashra LPs were band-setting albums (with the assistance of guitarist
Lutz Ulbrich and drummer
Harald Grosskopf) while
Göttsching solo records (like the landmark
E2-E4) were, truly, solo records. He also reunited with
Schulze to work on
Alphaville's 1989 LP,
The Breathtaking Blue.
–
John Bush, Rovi