Much like Manuel Göttsching’s dazzling solo debut (1975’s Inventions For Electric Guitar LP), early New Age of Earth pressings were credited to the Krautrock icon and his old group Ash Ra Tempel. This despite its dissolution several years earlier, when bassist Hartmut Enke and synthesist Klaus Schulze left the Tempel’s lone devotee to hold down his own heady fort.
Göttsching shifted gears soon after New Age of Earth’s initial release, however, when he turned Ash Ra Tempel into Ashra and recruited guitarist Lutz Ulbrich and drummer Harald Grosskopf for a live rendition of the record’s four immersive trips across the space-time continuum. This name change is why the most widely available version of Göttsching’s ambient opus features completely different cover art: a light-bathed building that reflects the new dawn within its widescreen melodies, clean Gibson chords, and lean-yet-lush synth lines.
