Ashra

Ashra was the second phase of the spacy Krautrock outfit Ash Ra Tempel, where founder (and, sometimes, sole member) Manuel G?ttsching refocused the projects direction and began to concentrate more heavily on electronics. Especially with the revolving-door membership, G?ttsching had always been the focal point of Ash Ra Tempel, making their mind-bending psychedelic jams into showcases for his cosmic guitar work. However, at the outset of the Ashra era, G?ttsching was literally a one-man band, backing his guitar explorations with synths and sequencers that made his music sound cleaner and more pleasantly meditative. Ash Ra Tempels status as a going concern was in doubt by the end of 1973, having fallen into a G?ttsching-plus-guest-star pattern; G?ttsching released a solo album under his own name in 1974, Inventions for Electric Guitar, where his interest in electronic music began to crystallize. Less a regrouping than a renaming, Ashras inaugural release was 1976s New Age of Earth, one of G?ttschings finest efforts under any name. The 1977 follow-up, Blackouts, was also entirely solo. For 1979s Correlations, Ashra became a full-fledged band for the first time, with guitarist Lutz Ulbrich and drummer Harald Grosskopf officially joining the lineup. However, after 1980s Belle Alliance, the group went on hiatus. G?ttsching recorded the proto-techno masterpiece E2-E4 under his own name, and Ashra didnt appear again until a 1989 reunion for the album Walkin the Desert. Tropical Heat followed in 1991, and the group continued to record sporadically through the 90s.