Published
Thu, Nov 9, 2006, 09:00
- Göttsching will perform his proto-techno classic at Berghain next month in celebration of the track’s 25th anniversary.
Manuel Göttsching will perform his proto-techno classic at Berghain in Berlin next month in celebration of the track’s 25th anniversary.
Göttsching is an unlikely techno star – he got his start with Ash Ra Tempel in the early seventies, a three-piece Krautrock band with guitar solos as long as their hair. The band had a penchant for noise, but they had an ambient side too, which Göttsching later explored on his solo albums. But it wasn’t until ‘E2-E4’ that Göttsching made his mark on dance music. His fourth solo album was a single piece of fifty-minute minimalism composed on a sequencer in 1981, its repetition eerily prefiguring the techno that was to come later (with added guitar solos). Shopped around but not released until 1984, the record was originally ignored outside diehard Krautrock circles, until Larry Levan picked it up and began playing it at the Paradise Garage in New York. Levan had discovered this avant-garde German stuff worked well on dancefloors.
Nowadays the track sounds eerily modern (except perhaps for those guitar solos.) It’s been remixed by the likes of Carl Craig, Basic Channel, Adam Beyer and Lindstrom, but Göttsching has actually refrained from performing it live until this summer, when he debuted it at the Metamorphose Festival in Japan. If you didn’t make it, next month there’s another rare opportunity, with Göttsching performing the piece at Berghain in Berlin on December 12, 2006. The date is a significant one: it’ll be twenty-five years to the day since the music was conceived in Göttsching’s studio next to the KaDeWe.
Also on the bill is Ame, who’ll be DJing before and after the performance. As Göttsching's website says: “You can party with us after the concert, and maybe also talk to Manuel...”
Manuel Göttsching and Âme play Berghain in Berlin on December 12, 2006.