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Among Krautrock’s holiest, the Conny Plank-produced Ash Ra Tempel debut sees a 50+ year reissue in memoriam of its legendary makers, Manuel Göttsching, Klaus Schulze, and Hartmut Enke, who’ve all passed away in this century.

The springboard for so many improvised rock flights of fancy in its shearing wake, Ash Ra Tempel’s first flight still scorches with the trio’s propulsive, freeform slant on hard and space rock templates set by likes Hawkwind and Pink Floyd before them. Like many of their cohort, Ash Ra Tempel were the product of a need to develop a new German music that didn’t simply copy US or UK rock ’n roll, and better represented the thrust of a generation forward from their parents in the early ‘70s. 

Stemming from Hartmut Enke & Manuel Göttsching’s late ‘60s unit Steeple Chase Bluesband, the addition of Tangerine Dreamer Klaus Schulze in 1970 led the band to break orbit of US & UK blues-derived rock and head for the skies, capably aided by top flight producer Conny Plank, whose services would be in demand for years later by bands who were influenced by this album, among his others bearing his touch.

Now posthumously issued on MG.ART in the wake of Manuel Göttsching’s passing in late 2022, the recording still hits like a cosmic juggernaut with tentative take-off and 15 minutes of sustained, full wing thrust to ‘Amboss’, while ‘Traummaschine’ projects into intergalactic space with Schulze’s signature synth work and Göttsching’s shimmering guitar paving the way for all manner of drone and post rock. - Boomkat