DREAM & DESIRE

Dream and Desire is half a great album, and well worth tracking down if you're a fan of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Although only released in 1991, it was recorded in 1977 and is contemporary with and stylistically similar to the brilliant New Age of Earth and Blackouts.

The opening track, Dream, is 30 minutes of Gottsching doing what he did so well at the time, building up a hypnotic and delicately textured piece from synths and guitar. Anybody who loves Midnight on Mars (from Blackouts) will cherish this lenghty exploration of similar ideas. It's not dissimilar to some of the 30 minute epics Klaus Schulze was laying down at the same time on albums like Timewind, but with extra guitar. The piece constantly unfolds and develops in a pleasingly low key manner, and Gottsching's guitar has rarely sounded sweeter. A beautiful soundtrack for contemplation of the cosmos.

The next piece starts promisingly enough - Desire is built around the kind of sequencer rhythm that Tangerine Dream used on albums like Rubycon. Once it starts it goes on, and on, and on, never varying in either tone or tempo until the piece comes to a welcome close. This track could have used some severe editing - the fact that the sequencer setting never seems to change soon becoems irritating.

The closing track is a glimpse of what Desire could have been - Despair is based on a similar rhythm track, but at eight and a half minutes it doesn't out stay its welcome.

Programme your CD to play tracks 1 and 3 and you've got a respectable 39 minutes of mid 70s German electronica by a master of the form at the top of his game. If Desire had been better ealised, this could have been an album on a par with the immaculate New Age of Earth, as it is it's a worthy but flawed addition to Gottsching's back catalogue.

Next to his work with Ashra Tempel /Ashra, the guitarist Manuel Gottsching has published a few personal efforts, unofficially started with the seminal « inventions » in 1974. This second and official Gottsching's album in solo is in the direct vibe than « Inventions » and future Ashra recordings as Blackout, Correlations.It consists of long meditative / electronic tracks with real emotional & spacey "ambient" guitar sounds. It also features numerous sequencer / repetitive pulses, flowing in the background to accompany Gottsching's dominant guitar passages. Just as the solo production of ancient krautrockers (Peter Baumann & Edgar Froese from TD, Michael Hoenig from Agitation Free) the guitarist explores one more time the power of synthesisers, voluntary creating dreamy landscapes manoeuvred with a sense of improvisation and structure (the spacey themes are developed by hypnotic, endless electronic "patterns"). Not a standard but an original & contemplative musical adventure that can easily convince fans of Ashra.

Dream & Desire is very much in the same style as Manuel Gottsching's Ashra albums New Age of Earth and Blackouts with a small touch of Schulze. Each of the 3 reasonably lengthy tracks on this album have a unique feel compared to each other, which makes this a nice sampler of the various Gottsching styles.

As the name might suggest, "Dream" is quite dreamy sounding. The meat of this track is mainly Gottsching's softly played krautrock style electric guitar looping in the presence of a typically light and very German beat and intermittent symphonic synths that improve the overall grandiosity that is implied by its 30 minute runtime.

"Desire" is where the profound Schulze influence comes in. The wavering, ghostly synths are very Schulze, and the authentic guitar sound of "Dream" is traded for a much more electronically treated synth guitar effect, but it works to make this track much more epic. What makes this track stand out, in my opinion, is the strong sense of '80s pop melodicism in the beat and the main melody, which greatly improves the accessibility of this track and makes it much positive sounding that it would otherwise.

"Despair" is the shortest of the three tracks and marks the return of the authentic guitar sound with Gottsching soloing melodically from the half-way point onward. This is also the most upbeat track, which kind of contrasts with the track's title, but like the others it is very minimalist symphonic in composition. It's a good track but not as interesting as the previous two, though the guitar tone will be very desirable for krautrock fans.

Overall, Dream & Desire is a good progressive electronic album in a very krautrock kind of style that mixes the well-established monolithic sound structures of Schulze and Tangerine Dream with a strong element of joviality from ethereal (as opposed to the usual dark) melodic decisions.

"New Age of Earth"'s little brother

Released in 1991, the tracks of "Dream and Desire" have been recorded in 1977, between "New Age of Earth" and "Blackouts". Musically, this record reflects the beginning of the transition between these two albums. Contrarily to its precedessor, Manuel Göttsching may have used sequencers for these compositions. As a result, the tunes sometimes sound more monotoneous and less human. The guitar also makes its discrete comeback.

"Dream" is the main interest of the record. A soothing 30 minutes long piece, with a warm atmosphere. Despite its length, this track contains some interesting variations and cool guitar textures. A nice complement to ASHRA's 1976 album. The two other tracks shows a slight evolution from the "New Age of Earth"'s style.

"Desire" is the most innovative piece with its ambient tone and repetitive beat prefiguring "E2-E4". The only problem with this track is its length and monotony. The record finishes with "Despair", the shortest track. While the first half is atmospheric, the second half features sequence patterns similar to Sunrain, the melody being replaced by a spacey guitar solo.

After all, maybe these compositions should have been released in 1977. Too long and not as good as the 2 albums from the same period, it was nonetheless rather creative at the time, and - like other Göttsching material - could have influenced future electronic artists. Although a bit lengthy, the tracks are overall pleasant and relaxing. If you enjoy "New Age of Earth", you'll like "Dream and Desire".