Saturday 28 April 2018

Ash Ra Tempel - Seven Up (1973)


The third album from this German band.

Ash Ra Tempel was a trio on this album with a lineup of guitars, electronics, synths and bass.
Guest musicians provided organ, flutes, drums, tambourine and vocals.

This album was made in cooperation with Timothy Leary, a man the US president Richard Nixon described as "The most dangerous man in America". Timothy Leary lived in exile in Switzerland at that time and came up with the lyrics for this album and some musical directions.

Timothy Leary was the inventor and front figure for LSD, a narcotic substance which is now largely forgotten. It was a big thing in the 1960s and the 1970s, though.

Ash Ra Tempel continues on from their first two albums. The music is cosmic space rock with a lot of samples. You can almost label LSD rock although I would strongly warn against any use of LSD. A very dangerous drug indeed. 

There is a lot of Gong influences on this album. That goes for the samples. The vocals are both male and female. Both Timothy's voices and some female wailing vocals.

The music is good to very good throughout this album. It their best album so far. It even has some good melodies inbetween the the cosmic spaced out wailing and guitars. This is indeed an album well worth checking out.

3.5 points

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