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Manuel Göttsching - Inventions For Electric Guitar CD (album) cover

INVENTIONS FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR

Manuel Göttsching

 

Krautrock

3.85 | 105 ratings

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siLLy puPPy
Special Collaborator
PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
3 stars And on this one i am on an opposite spin from many others. MANUEL GÖTTSCHING is, of course, the founder and mastermind behind the ambient space rock group Ash Ra Tempel and Cosmic Jokers as well as being in cahoots with Klaus Schulze's solo career, Agitation Free, Wallenstein and the ever-so-psychedelic persona of Timothy Leary. He also was in a band called the Steeple Chase Blues Band but i digress and meander back to my unexpatiated point (or did i even have one?)

Anyway, this is a minimalistic ambient type of album. MANUEL's guitar sounds are extremely professionally and technically magnificent but what's lacking here is some amazing mind-blowing creativity in how they are displayed. That's my biggest complaint about this album. I have one of the newer remastered versions and am totally impressed with the production and all but for an album that claims INVENTIONS FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR with MANUEL's smiling face gracing the cover, i just don't find this to be the panacea of musical creativity from 1975.

Bascially, i have high standards for minimalistic music. It really has to be original in many ways and not derivative in any way. Anyone can make a minimalistic album based on something great that came before. This album just sounds too much like what Achim Reichel and his Machines conjured up in 1971 with their landmark album "Die Grüne Reise" which IMHO is a much more interesting and diverse album.

And from the same year of this album's release was Steve Hillage's "Fish Rising" which employs much of the Gong inspired trippiness in his guitar playing that doesn't sound too much different stylistically speaking than what GöTTSCHING was going for here and is MUCH superior in the creativity department. This is not a bad minimalistic album but neither is it a great one. There are no scorching guitar moments as on Ash Ra Tempel's debut album, only subtle musical changes that don't get my freak flag flying high enough. Good and influential but personally i only find this ok to listen to on a regular basis but i do like it, just not immensely.

3.5 rounded down

siLLy puPPy | 3/5 |

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