Ash Ra Tempel

Featuring: Oren Ambarchi, Manuel Göttsching

2015 Live Recording from "Supersense" Festival Melbourne featuring a 'supergroup' formed around Manuel Göttsching, Ariel Pink, Oren Ambarchi, Shags Chamberlain playing material from the classic Ashe Ra Tempel releases "Schwingungen" and  "Seven Up". "Out of the blue - I was invited to perform in Melbourne, Australia. It happened thanks to my dear old friend Mick Glossop, who made the suggestion to Sophia Brous, at the time the curator of a music-festival called „Supersense“ at the Melbourne Arts Centre in summer 2015. In addition to the solo performance I‘d planned, Sophia proposed an additional collaboration or session performances with some of the other participating musicians.I had never been very happy in performing „public sessions“.

I‘ve always tried to first look for a conceptual approach, and my wife, Ilona J. Ziok, came up with the idea of performing some Ash Ra Tempel classics. That‘s when the idea for an „Experience“ was born. I decided that pieces from the second and third Ash Ra Tempel albums „Schwingungen“ and „Seven Up“ (both from 1972) would be most appropriate for a group performance with Ariel Pink, Shags Chamberlain and Oren Ambarchi. We conversed by email, and much to my surprise, they all claimed to be very familiar with this music. … It felt a bit like pushing at open doors - or, to put it another way - it felt like being welcomed with open arms.

We finally met in Melbourne for a relaxed afternoon rehearsal, just two days before the actual concert performance took place. After a technical set-up we went straight into „Look at Your Sun“ and it was as if we had performed it only yesterday. It continued like that with the other tracks. For the first part of „Schwingungen“ I decided for a little variation, so that all four of us were standing around the vibraphone at the beginning, playing it with four / eight hands - like an imaginary „Music for Four Musicians“ (a bit reminiscent of the early works of Steve Reich)."