This album is sometimes credited to
Ash Ra Tempel
, but the music was composed and performed by
Manuel Goettsching
alone. All sounds were created with guitar, but
Goettsching
's use of echo, delay, and assorted treatments give these pieces the flavor of sequenced synthesizer music, occasionally reminiscent of
Tangerine Dream
's work from the period. The opening
"Echo Waves"
is a trance-inducing space guitar masterpiece, with repeating rhythm figures and gradual phase shifts creating a warped sense of time. The first 14 minutes of the track consist of short, subtly changing melodic phrases, until
questionably chooses to close with a searing, acid-fried guitar solo.
"Quasarsphere"
is much more contemplative, with
processing his guitar to sound like a synthesizer in the vein of
Robert Fripp
. The closing
"Pluralis"
consists of endless variations constructed around a simple guitar sequence; it possesses a structure similar to
(down to the late-breaking blast of psychedelic soloing) with a bit more space and a slower tempo. In some respects a precursor to the groundbreaking
proto-techno
of
E2-E4
,
Inventions for Electric Guitar
is an essential document for
space rock
enthusiasts. ~ Mark Richardson