INVENTIONS FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR

Although labelled as an Ash Ra Tempel album every so often this is also said to be Manuel Göttsching's first solo effort. And true, you will only hear his guitar, but based on echoes, effects and overdubbing this partially sounds like a band is on the run. As a youngster in the 1970's 'Inventions For Electric Guitar' fascinated me for a while. This music was so different from stuff which was normally delivered, experimental due to the hypnotic looping behaviour ... and the beauty, the melancholic outfit even brought tears to my eyes occasionally, when I was intensively listening via headphones - often also coupled with Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida suite, you should know.

After nearly 40 years which are gone in the meanwhile, I still can hear the special inspiration, which flows on the same level with Günther Schickert's GAM and Achim Reichel's krautrock phase. A particular feature is, that the sound is very electronically outfitted, thus resembles a Tangerine Dream flair in some way. Echo Waves - the title suits best - shines with a gripping progression - variating echoed guitar excursions, a deep toned track imitates a bass, others are added which sound way more like synthesizer output. Finally Manuel offers a proper guitar solo on top of it.

Occupying one flipside Pluralis follows with a quite similar approach and once again you're inclined to insist, that some synth stuff is incorporated too - but no, this exclusively comes from the guitar. Historically seen this album manifests Manuel Göttsching's disengagement from Ash Ra Tempel. Though being very minimalistic this is something entertaining nevertheless. For me 'Inventions For Electric Guitar' definitely should be counted among the essential contributions to the krautrock genre.