Ashra – Blackouts

This is one of the epic Guitar/Synth albums of the late 70's that builds on use of delayed and looped guitar and analog synth sequences. This is where Ash Ra really takes off from the foundations of the Ash Ra Tempel band into Manuel's headspace and with amazing results.

He's later revisited some of his classic E2-E4 works by treating it as the contemporary classical composition it should be seen as, using multiple guitars to perform that piece live. I don't think he could ever pull that off with this, with only Manuel playing, per the liner notes, 'Sequencer, Keyboards and a lot of guitar."

I could compare it to Tim Blake's Crystal Machine or Tangerine Dream, but Manuel Gottsching really owns the territory this release explores, as a logical extension of his work with Ash Ra Tempel as they evolved and dropped acid with Tim Leary, to this... outward and onward.

Blackouts might sound a bit less uncommon now, decades later... but if you you were even alive before 1980 and had a chance to hear this you were lucky to ever find it, and over the years this has become recognized for the cult classic it has always been in the minds of us lucky enough to have had this to chill out to back in the late 70's and early 80's.

Keep in mind that this was done with minimal technology at a time when few people had hands on a studio with gear capable of recording this, and that this is one of the guys with the vision to see and hear what could be done with it and where it could lead. It was amazing to hear then, when you'd never hear anything like this on radio, when the Internet didn't exist, and when you were pretty damn luck if you ever found a copy of this or someone who had it, and could kick back, and chill... and it's still an adventure now, when making music that sounds sort of like this isn't hard, but still requires more talent than most people will ever have to even get close to this good.

"This record should be heard comfortably" is what the back cover advises.