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A.R. & Machines — Echos aus Zeiten der Grünen Reise
(Polydor 557 402-2, 1998, CD)

by Mike McLatchey, Published 1999-01-01

Echos aus Zeiten der Grünen Reise Cover art

If I had time, I suppose I could go through and research exactly where each minute- to six-minute excerpt came from in said part of said track from one of Achim Reichel's albums. Better yet, I could turn this off and go listen to the entirety of his second album Echo (only nine minutes from that album on here) or any of the other album of Reichel's first six that this compilation culls from. If this series of four- or five-minute excerpts and songs is supposed to give the newcomer a clue about a span of albums that held mostly long (often side-long) echo-guitar space-rock tracks, they are certainly going to get a very patchy view. I think Germanofon has done some "reissuing" of some of the early Reichel albums, but we'd all be better off with a serious reissue series, as these albums, such as the legendary psychedelic album Die Grüne Reise (this was reissued on CD many years back by Polydor) or the later, but still impressive, Ehrolung (the shortest track here is 7'00!), are of great merit; a parallel path to Göttsching's Ash Ra Tempel or Gunter Schickert. While the Ash Ra Tempel albums were patchy, some classic, some very mediocre, the early Reichel albums were all of very high quality. His use of the echo guitar created a heavily psychedelic sound that, like ART, had its roots in the blues and Hendrix, yet Reichel did things with the echo guitar that Schickert or Göttsching didn't experiment with until two or three years later. Overall, this compilation is a tease; its all great music, but music that seems out of context when pulled out of a longer format.

Filed under: Archives, Issue 16, 1998 releases

Related artist(s): A.R. & Machines (Achim Reichel)

 

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