Review Summary: Transcending the guitar / transcending via guitar
The electric guitar, an instrument as popular as it is iconic. Though it spent the first three decades of the 20th century not really existing in any meaningful form, and the next three accruing only moderate success, the counterculture of the mid 1960s to early 1970s rapidly catapulted it to superstardom. From that point forward, amplified and often distorted guitar completely and singlehandedly redefined rock music with its fresh and powerful energy, capable of offering a hard edge for those with something to say, deeply expressive solos, and even trippy, haunting sounds for those going on an interstellar (over)drive. And rock music, in kind, forever enshrined it in pop culture as a symbol of youth, rebellion, excitement, freedom and attitude. Of course, this counterculture was quickly subsumed, integrated wholesale into the establishment machine and spat back out as another set of commodities and symbols for easily digestible mass consumption. But even this, as well as the persisting culture surrounding rock music and its offspring, the mythos of the rockstar, of "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll", and the rapidly increasing role of marketing in both music as an industry and the world in general only made the guitar a more visible, more profitable symbol. So how does one stray from the ubiquitous and easily recognisable sound? What is there to invent, for the electric guitar?
Manuel Göttsching was no stranger to the instrument. First trained in classical guitar as a child, he made the switch to electric as a teenager, influenced by his new-found love for American R&B as well as British blues and rock music. After a number of cover bands and other stints, he eventually founded
Ash Ra Tempel, one of the more notable bands of Germany's so-called krautrock scene of the early 70s, featuring heavy improvisation, electronics, ethereal cosmic soundscapes and his own, often Hendrix-esque guitar playing. After a few years and a few releases with Ash Ra, Göttsching discovered a new source of inspiration in the works of American minimalist composers
Terry Riley and
Steve Reich. Upon seeing the former live at a festival in Berlin, he decided to try his hand at a similar compositional approach, and so Inventions for Electric Guitar came to be.
So what is it? Three pieces of music, just shy of 46 minutes total, created with nothing but an electric guitar, some effects and a four channel tape deck. That's it. And it wastes no time demonstrating its potential, as Echowaves opens with two stereo-panned guitar voices hypnotically repeating short musical fragments in typical minimalist fashion. They are then joined by a quasi-percussive beating sound, and before long a lower register guitar voice imitating a sort of bassline. It is at this point that the piece starts sonically resembling , to an almost uncanny degree, the sequenced meditations for modular synthesizer that
Tangerine Dream and
Klaus Schuzle were spearheading around this same time, but filtered through the warmer, more organic sound of the guitar. Göttsching's music is no less captivating when compared to his more electronic compatriots, and though it is by design repetitive and keeping a steady rhythm, it never forgets to develop in subtle ways. Different guitar voices weave in and out and alter their melodic phrases ever so slightly, and towads the end we are even treated to a lovely extended bluesy solo in the vein of earlier Ash Ra Tempel.
Quasarsphere, the relatively shorter middle piece (though still over six minutes), takes a vastly different musical approach, as if the exciting cosmic voyage took a brief break to let you soak in the surroundings. Here, all guitar tracks are drowned out, distant, shimmering gently. One voice drones in the background while others swirl without much drive on top of it, placing emphasis more on texture, mood and immersion than on the simple and relatively slow melodic content of the lines. Rather Eno-esque.
Finally, Pluralis represents a synthesis of the two ideas presented previously. In terms of structure, rhythmicity and arrangement it more resembles Echowaves to be sure, only underneath the minimalist melodic fragments, at least one of the four voices is always dedicated to providing a largely textural backdrop not unlike what we heard on the second piece, at times almost resembling Schulze's eerie organ drones, while at others a gentler ambient. The result is perhaps the most varied and dynamic track of the three.
Inventions for Electric Guitar is a triumph. Anyone with a liking for kosmiche music or 70s progressive electronic should feel right at home with this record. And yet it was created entirely from the sounds of an electric guitar. In 1974. A truly remarkable accomplishment, though second to the entrancing beauty of the music itself.
