There are bands you put on while doing the dishes.
There are bands you put on while driving at night.
And then there’s Ash Ra Tempel—the band you put on when you want your soul to detach from your body, cruise past Saturn, and politely ignore time as a concept.
Founded in 1970 by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, drummer Klaus Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke, Ash Ra Tempel was Germany’s answer to the question: What if music wasn’t music, but instead a guided meditation for aliens with malfunctioning synthesizers?
And the answer?
It rules.
Ash Ra Tempel’s early work is like stepping into a lava lamp that accidentally developed consciousness. Their self-titled 1971 debut is a 20-minute track followed by another 20-minute track. Because why settle for verses and choruses when you can drift aimlessly through a psychedelic fugue state with a bunch of stoned Teutonic visionaries?
Some bands flirt with improvisation. Ash Ra Tempel married it and took it on a honeymoon through hyperspace.
Their secret sauce? A wild combination of:
Manuel Göttsching’s guitar, which sounds like he taught it to breathe,
Klaus Schulze’s drums, which sometimes disappear entirely because time is an illusion,
and synthesizers that behave less like instruments and more like sentient fog machines.
To call this “stoner rock” is like calling a black hole “a bit dark.”
This is not background music. This is background cosmos.
And if you’re thinking, “Okay, but is this music deep?”—yes. Deep like the Mariana Trench after it’s been colonized by sentient light orbs.
Albums like Schwingungen and Join Inn are sonic mood boards for transcendence. Their collab with freak-mage Timothy Leary on Seven Up is essentially a musical shrug that says: “Eh, reality’s overrated.”
There’s something oddly wise about Ash Ra Tempel’s refusal to adhere to traditional song structure. In a world drowning in hooks, choruses, and TikTok loops, there’s something refreshing about a band that just says, “Nope. Here’s a 24-minute track about your third eye waking up and asking for coffee.”
Their music teaches patience. It rewards surrender. It’s a crash course in cosmic detachment, with bonus feedback solos. It’s like therapy, if your therapist was a synthesizer and also a cloud.
Manuel Göttsching eventually moved toward more ambient and electronic realms (hello, E2-E4, aka the proto-techno Rosetta Stone), while Schulze went full synth wizard. But those early Ash Ra Tempel records remain monuments to a time when music was less about doing and more about being extremely spaced out in a cave with an echo machine.
And you know what? We need that energy again. Not everything has to be catchy. Not every track has to slap. Sometimes, the best music just slowly vibrates your pineal gland until you forget your WiFi password.
So here’s to Ash Ra Tempel—pioneers of the ineffable, guardians of the drone, accidental yoga instructors for interdimensional beings.
Put them on the next time life feels too linear. Turn off your notifications. Stare at a lava lamp. Reconsider your ego.
You may not know where the track ends—but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
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