Manuel Göttsching. The man who invented guitar drone music

Another story about pioneers of electronic music. The radio of post-war Germany, where American, British and French troops remained for a long time, constantly played music from the occupying countries that had been unknown until then. The new generation of Germans born after 1945 openly despised the old order, didn’t understand their parents’ conformism, and tried to express themselves. But on the one hand, the old culture no longer existed, and on the other hand, foreign culture was too alien. Young artists found their way by combining psychedelic rock, non-conventional pop music, and avant-garde electronics into what would later be called kosmische musik in Berlin and krautrock throughout the country. (Kraut was a derogatory term used to refer to Germans during the First and Second World Wars because of their love of sauerkraut dishes.)

The counterculture that emerged from the ruins of German civilization gave the world many musicians (Can, Neu!, Cluster, Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh). In addition to the well-known example of Kraftwerk, who, before discovering their inner robots, played cool Düsseldorf krautrock (they refuse to reissue the albums from that period), there is another famous transition from rock to electronic music—Manuel Göttsching: “One day in 1970, Klaus Schulze came and asked to join us, as he only left Tangerine Dream. This was the moment when Ash Ra Tempel was born. Hartmut just had purchased some of Pink Floyd’s sound equipment in London for us and we became the loudest band in town.”