E2-E4 - Manuel Gottsching (1984)

Vacation time: I’m on a family road trip, so I’m leveraging my large backlog of un-Substacked blog posts. This one was originally posted Aug 31, 2022. It’s been edited for clarity, spelling, and whether I still feel that way. Go to the original to find lots more music posts and better linking between them.

I wasn’t quite ready for this. I didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t recognize the name Manuel Gottsching. It started as what sounded to me like generic house music, but then it just kept building and building, becoming more and more interesting. Then, halfway through, there’s guitar all of a sudden. It just underscored that I was listening to something special.

As it turns out Gottsching usually recorded under the name Ash Ra Tempel, a Kosmische / space rock band that I know a bit. This record is a live improvisation done in a single take, where he layers synths and drum machines (and guitar for the second half) in intricate rhythms. I’m not a giant fan of trance and house music, but it can be really compelling when done well. And this is done very well.

Both the artwork and the song titles are chess-themed, I assume because we get kind of the same layer-by-layer, step-by-step building of that goes into a game of chess. Very clever.

Tracks I Liked

I mean, it’s just one solid piece, but worth sticking around until that fabulously inventive guitar comes in from Damen-Eleganza aka Queen A Pawn

RIYL

This one reminds me (at least somewhat) of a favorite from 2021: Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony