Biography of Manuel Göttsching - the name behind ASHRA (also known as Mr. ASH RA TEMPEL)
Modest, quiet, bad with self-promotion and with answering the phone, Manuel Göttsching is instead content to stay at home meditating on his next project by painting his Berlin's flat windows, all that even though he is exhibited as a wax model in Japan's largest Wax Museum.
This legendary guitarist of the 70's funky Germany influenced today's electronic music scene.
Beginning as Ash Ra Tempel then Ashra then solo as Manuel Göttsching, among others like Tangerine Dream or Can, these musicians created a German music scene of its own.
While there has always been and still is an Anglo-American musical influence, this new musical movement did not try to reproduce what they heard, but to make something new!
The German language being however not popular then, most performers used to have English lyrics, and as Ash Ra Tempel refused to play that commercial game, they more or less decided not to have lyrics at all!!
Manuel Göttsching enjoys a creative environment, surrounded by painters, musicians and fashion designers, he played music for five of Skoda fashion shows as well as for Jopp's.
If you still can not put your finger on the person that I am presenting here, one of the most famous piece he recorded is the 1981 e2-e4, which has also been remixed as "Sueno Latino".
In the beginning...
Manuel Göttsching was born in Berlin on September 9th, 1952.
Like any teenager of that period he was listening to Jimmy Hendrix, the Stones, Cream, Small faces, Who, Fleetwood Mac...
As he had learned classical guitar as a child, but wanted to play drums at the age of 15, he and best friend Harmut Enke created their first band on Harmut's birthday.
Manuel ended up as the singer of the band.
A year later he studied improvisations and got to meet the Swiss avant-gardist composer Thomas Kessler.
The 70's.....
That summer saw the birth of Ash Ra Tempel regrouping Manuel Göttsching (guitar), Harmut Enke (bass) and Klaus Schulze (Tangerine Dream) (drums) and that after purchasing a second hand sound equipment in London.
The idea was to combine blues influenced improvisations and new sounds, created by traditional instruments, guitar, bass and drums.
They released in 1971 the debut album Ash Ra Tempel recorded by Conny Plank in Hamburg.
Klaus Schulze left the band to pursue a solo career, he was replaced by Wolfgang Müller. Schwingungen was released in early 1972.
In summer 1972 Manuel collaborated with various people like Timothy Leary in Bern giving birth to the third Ash Ra Tempel album Seven up, recorded at the Studio Dierks in Cologne. It did not stop there. The former members of Ash Ra Tempel met again, also joined by Manuel's girl friend Rosi. They recorded Tarot and Join Inn.
As these sessions of musicians gatherings were an exciting experience, the producer Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser carried on jam sessions in the Studio Dierks under the label OHR. It was a pioneer label to promote new German rock music and as Manuel Göttsching said, "this was a revolutionary task".
Some of these so called Cosmic Sessions were always being recorded, a tape was constantly running. The results of these musical meetings within the OHR studios led by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser were later released as the Cosmic Couriers series.
Later that year, in 1973, Manuel convinced his girl Rosi to record the album on which she would sing, that led to Starring Rosi.
In 1974, he set up his own Studio Roma and released his first solo album in 1975, Inventions for Electric Guitar recorded with just his guitar and two tape recorders.
In 1976 he performed for the Berlin based fashion designer Skoda during the fashion show in the Fabrikneu, with electric guitar and electronics, accompanied by Klaus Kriger (Tangerine Dream) at the drums. Even though this recording was not released, parts of the composition were performed on his solo Tour de France for New Age of Earth, as Ash Ra Tempel.
1977 Ash Ra Tempel became Ashra. This was a break up with the past, a new beginning. He formed this new band with Lutz Ulbrich and Harald Grosskopf.
The last three years of the decade 3 solo albums were released, New Age of Earth contrasting with Inventions for Electric Guitar. Keyboards and synthesizers were in the foreground consequent to Manuel Göttsching's addiction to the idea of sequencing those sounds into continuous musical compositions, recording backwards with the tape machines at double speed.
He toured with this album in London, in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Blackouts was his third solo album recording with the guitar. He later toured with Lutz and Harald.
Dream & Desire initially recorded for a Olaf Reitner's radio feature in 1977, was released only 14 years later.
In 1978 Manuel performed live on electronics for the Claudia Skoda fashion shows Laufsteg at the renowned Berlin Egyptian Museum.
The band finally decided to record an album together, Correlations in 1979 under Manuel's direction.
In 1979 once more, Manuel performed for the Big Birds fashion show by Claudia Skoda. The show took place at the Kongresshalle, Berlin (Congress Hall).
The 80's...
Belle Alliance, as its name reveals, was a true collaboration of the trio in 1980, album which didn't get as much attention from Virgin as one would have hoped.
That same year, Manuel produced the CD album and video clip DIE DOMINAS (The Dominas) by Rosi and Claudia Skoda. A video exists.
A year later, ASHRA (Manuel Göttsching, Lutz Ulbrich and Harald Grosskopf) appeared on the Spanish "Musical Express" TV show, Barcelona.
Half disillusioned by the corporate music industry business and inspired by the tour experience with Klaus Schulze that year, he recorded in December 1981 e2-e4 in the Studio Roma, released 3 years later on Schulze's label "Inteam Records".
This recording gained a great deal of attention at the end of the 80's in the "house", "techno", "dance-floor" scenes and was remixed as well as sampled by dozens of bands and DJs, one of them being "Sueno Latino" by an Italian group of musicians and DJs.
He performed once more for the Skoda fashion show in 1982 at the Berlin's Museum of Art, a composition for percussions and orchestra, followed the by another show the next year this time at the light hall of the Berlin Technical University, a Manuel Göttsching's composition for guitar orchestra. Manuel Göttsching, FJ Krüger and Lutz Ulbrich at the guitar, Harald Grosskopf at the drums, DJ Zak Preen at the percussions.
Ashra that is Lutz Ulbrich, Harald Grosskopf and Manuel Göttsching started the recording of Tropical Heat in 1985, recording lasting two years, to be remixed by Manuel Göttsching in 1991, year of its release.
He played for the German designer Joop's fashion show Ost-West at the Düsseldorf's international fashion fair in 1986 and also for a play of Antonio Skameta, Chilean film director and professor at the Berlin's Film Academy in exile in Germany, today the ambassador of Chile in Germany. This play was called Burning Patience.
Ashra took part in the official programme for the Berlin - Cultural Capital of Europe 1988 for which Manuel Göttsching and Lutz Ulbrich composed and performed for the event series Desert Sounds, a composition to works from Abert Camus, St Exupéry and Otl Aicher at the Berlin Planetarium. The main parts of this performance were re-edited by Manuel Göttsching in his Studio Roma and released a year later as Walkin' The Desert.
In 1989 he collaborated with the Italian dance music production DFC. The number 1 charts hit Sueno Latino based on the e2-e4 was born.
The 90's....
He released the 1977 recording of Dream & Desire in 1991.
The same year he collaborated with the theatre with Urs Remond, Jan Schlubach (Wim Wender's scenographer), composed the music to the Bram Stoker's play Dracula at the Hebbel-Theater in Berlin featuring famous German actors such as Sigrid Landgrebe and Erik Hansen.
Ashra met in Cologne for the Rhine's Cultural Days in cooperation with German Radio and TV Station WDR, Klaus Schulze has joined too.
Release of Tropical Heat, remix of the 1985-1987 recordings.
In 1993 the 15th album Le Berceau de Cristal used for Philippe Garrel's film of the same name was released as Ash Ra Tempel's 7th album, the first real collaboration between Göttsching and Ulbrich in 1975, but the music was used as the soundtrack of the film in 1976.
In 1995 he also released a 1976 recording of himself together with Michael Hoenig Early Water, followed in 1996 by The Private Tapes, a series of six CDs with all unreleased recordings of the period between 1969 and 1979.
In 1997, Ashra toured in Japan, it was the band's reunion also with Steve Baltes but other gigs followed. The open air Concert Burg Herzberg, the Festival in Höfgen-Kaditzsch where he performed solo Die Mulde, a composition for the 34-mirror installation RVSP by the Berlin artist Mercedes Engelhard, Festival in Nijmegen, Holland (as Ashra), at the Tränenpalast (as Ashra), (former border between east and west) for Ulbrich's birthday party and at last, he participated in the film project Kurt Gerron (Oscar Nominee) together with his companion and director of the film, Ilona Ziok.
Göttsching appeared and performed in the film, for which he composed one title sung by Ben Becker and remixed the music for the CD released in 1999. This project also involved famous German actors and musicians such as Ute Lemper, Ben Becker, Coco Schumann.........
17th album as Ashra Sauce Hollandaise in 1998, a recording from the concert in Nijmegen of the previous year, the 18th album being @shra, a release of recordings from the first part of the Japan Tour.
The 21st Century.....
The year 2000 referred to quite a lot of events, starting with a one time reunion of Ash Ra Tempel, Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze playing at the Royal Festival Hall in London for Julian Cope's Cornucopea Festival on April 2nd.
See our photo page.
Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze's studio album recorded in 1999 / 2000 Friendship as Ash Ra Tempel was out, followed by their 20th album, Gin Rosé At The Festival Hall.
Ashra played also at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Academy of Arts) during the French - German cultural exchange "Paris - Berlin 2000" and at the Berlin Music Festival "Z 2000", supported by Radio 1, Keyboards and Sounds & Sounds.
See our photo page.
The Berlin based international avant-garde chamber orchestra Zeitkratzer performed e2-e4 at the Akademie der Künste, which was the closing ceremony performance of the Berlin Music Festival.
2001 saw the collaboration of Manuel Göttsching with Santos in Bologna and the release of Santo's CD R U Shakadelic? Containing Manuel's Intimate, also the release of two videos (PAL and NTSC): Ashra Live at the Open Air Festival Herzberg 1997 and Die Mulde by Manuel Göttsching from 1997.
2002 Manuel Göttsching set up his own label MG.ART through which he released @shra Vol.2, the second part of the Japan Tour (cf. 1998) and The Making Of , unreleased tracks from the original tapes of the sessions with Lutz Ulbich and Harald Grosskopf, recorded for the production of Correlations.
He is also currently working on tracks for The Junker und der Kommunist, documentary film directed by Ilona Ziok.
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.ashra.comTrack List:
1. Sunrain
2. Four Guitars
3. Hausaufgabe
4. Oasis
5. Move 9 Up
Suggested CDs:
Other Genres:
