Ash Ra Tempel

Live concert by Manuel Gottsching and Klaus Schulze at the Royal Festival Hall.
Ash Ra Tempel, pioneering veterans of the "Berlin School", became known worldwide with their LPs / publications in the years 1971-1973. On the debut album of the same name from 1971 in the formation of Hartmut Enke (bass), Manuel Göttsching (guitar), Klaus Schulze (drums), Ash Ra Tempel radically deconstructed elements of rock and blues and combined them with electronic sounds to create novel sound collages. Göttsching and Schulze met again and again during their later solo careers and demonstrated their musical ties to innovative guitar and electronics, but it was not until 2000 that they came together again for a short interlude as "Ash Ra Tempel".
Born out of the late-1960's Berlin underground scene, they were rooted in a succession of beat and blues bands, including: Bluebirds, The Bomb Proofs, Bad Joe, and Steeple Chase Bluesband. The latter were transformed entirely when Klaus Schulze from Tangerine Dream met up with them becoming Ash Ra Tempel. The trio of Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke decided to abandon conventional composition and song writing, in favour of free-form improvising and developing a new musical language. As such, they became notorious for jams that could exceed 30 minutes (some such recordings can be found on The Private Tapes releases).