Göttsching galore!

Famed guitarist returns with two records at once

Lazy times are definitely over for Manuel Göttsching, one of the most gifted guitarist of the last few decades. With two new releases out, his career is now entering a new creative summer and should both make those happy who were kept waiting for so long in the nineties and enlighten those who might never have heard of the man.

As so often with Göttsching, one of the albums actually returns to the past, namely to the year 1997. Back then, he performed "as part of" an installation created by Mercedes Engelhardt in Leipzig, which included 34 mirrors. No guitars here, but instead a dreamy, floating, gentle and wondersome sound scape full of minimal movements and small harmonic shifts. "Die Mulde" (referring to the name of the river, close to which the performance initially took place) had already been available on VHS, but has now been entirely reworked and sounds absolutely stunning, if the extensive MP3s on Manuel's homepage are anything to go by.

The second release is a treasure chest for movie fans and music lovers alike. Pop and Rock bands have on several occasions tried to write new scores to existing movies, some of the most recent examples are the Asian Dub Foundation's sound track to French ghetto meditation "La Haine" (praised everywhere) and the just released Pet Shop Boys backing to "Battleship Potemkin" (which has been panned as their worst effort ever by friends and foes). Göttsching spices things up by chosing a movie that, unlike the beforementioned examples, is not considered a classic and will probably be unknown to most: "Schloß Vogelöd/Haunted Castle". One of the early films of the German "Caligari School", it serves historical purposes more than aesthetic ones and is interesting mainly as a first outline for the renowned "Nosferatu". Unexpectedly, the pieces on "Concert for Murnau" are not dark and sombre, but rather warm and lush, even though there is a mysterious and haunting ambiance present for sure. One of the tracks also features a string ensemble and hints at Göttsching's future as a Modern Composer alomg the ranks of Reich and Glass.

Having said that, after a bunch of re-releases and an Ashra Temple reunion, the word now seems to be "future" and everything is about looking ahead and trying on different things. As we said in the first paragraph: That's good news for everybody.

Homepage: Manuel Göttsching / Ashra Temple