Manuel Göttsching ‎– E2-E4

so here i am again listening to this album for the XXXXXth time.
I cant stress this enough, this album is "The Terminator" of underground music.
No words can describe how good this piece of work is

wow!
one of the most important electronic albums!

if you haven't heard this before, be prepared for the flight of a lifetime.

When it happens, just happens. And nothing happens at random,this for both normal and special things.But only the special things happen by pure magic, or some strange astral combination, the dance in zero gravity between immanent and transcendent,any disengagement of some here and some drawings up there. The ability to express the totality of himself is a cumbersome venture, not automatic, often unattainable, often isn't enough a life. The ex-leader of Ashra(-Ra Temple), the kraut-deutsch guru Manuel Göttsching did it a quarter century ago,when he was thirty and came from important discs and experiences. An evening like many others, December 12/1981, a saturday, he was in concert mood (just returned from a tour with Klaus Schulze), enters his home studio armed with synth and guitar. And an hour of music was born. Something that scares at beginning and rhymes with perfection. After much reflections, doubts and afterthoughts, and only after the counsel of usual Schulze and especially three years laters, he decides to publish the session. "E2-E4", cover a chessboard on cold beige and brown, sees the light and its light changes the course of history(at least the music one). But what's E2-E4? For a human, the easiest opening move in chess. For a REAL human, the dream of life. A persistent of creamy syntethic geometries who proceeds to Nirvana escorted by a spastic latin beat and in its peak by a guitar that now we can define "balearic". THE loop by definition. And the thing that will change forever the DNA of house(Larry Levan says thank you!), will leave breathless the Motor City and its early visionaries (Derrick May and Carl Craig say thank you!). Nevertheless it's not a dance piece. But it will fall in love all the freaks, from ambient heads to ibicencans, and it will be sampled till'death (Sueno Latino, D2-D2, etc...etc...). But it's impossible to speak of "E2-E4" in terms of human technology, if you've that heart and that head, it will never leaves your lives. My all-time favourite record, my soul, my end. Rated 10/5.

Groundbreaking early electronic track which had a massive influence on some of the pioneers of modern dance mucic... Derrick May said that he and his friends would listen to the whole LP over and over again for weeks, Juan Atkins said the same and it fit in with his early vision of Science fiction music from outer space, and clearly had an influence on his early Model 500 / Metroplex output. The whole LP lasts well over 40 minutes, and instead of individual tracks, the LP is a continuous track arranged into phases, with subtle changes in instrumentation whilst maintaining the same background rift and light beat. Sampled a million times since, most notably on "Sueno Latino". Very Inspiring and deep music.

Indeed a journey deep in your mind, when it first came out, music press almost gave (with some exceptions) a negative response, nobody understood this concept. After the increasing the rave scene in the early nineties this record became more and more cult status because of the general recognizing the important influence on electronic music development. An early avantgarde masterpiece by Manuel Göttsching...

as you may know this is the fantastic track that carl craig used for the well-know "remix" on planet e and also "sueno latino" .

the original is less techno, for sure, but quite more instrumental with the use of guitars by the end of the track whwich last 50 min +...!

So far ahead of it's time, listening to the repetetive drum pattern and looping synths, it's hard to believe that this was produced in 1981. One the the landmark influences on electronic music as we know it.

Floor to ceiling is one way to describe this record. Seldom heard but often mentioned as one of THOSE records. You wish you could play but don't have the guts to. Beautiful simple chord progression and that beat. Course I first heard this through Sueno Latino which was one of those galvanising moments. I picked up those Carl Craig mixes as well when they first came out, which were so so. Those mixes take a lot of work to really really pull off a good mix with that record. But it would take many years to track an original down of this gem. Got it, love it, seldom play it.