Ashra - Walkin' the Desert (Navigator, 1989)

(This latter image was found on an impressive blog all about Manuel Gottsching)

So, I've been listening to kosmische rock heavily again... but Gottsching and his Ash Ra/Ashra/self titled stuff was never the first thing I'd put on. OK, so I had E2-E4, liked it, then got Inventions somewhere along the way... Dreams and Desire impressed me. But for some reason his work never jumped out at me, until I dug a little deeper and found this record and Blackouts, which will probably be up here sooner or later.

It starts auspiciously enough with "Two Keyboards", but wait until you get to the last three numbers. "Four Guitars" was featured on Jason Urick's excellent mix that Phil pointed out to me, and what a slice of ten minutes it is. The vocal sounds on "Twelve Samples" haunt, and "Dessert" ties things up nicely with a MIDI groove and lilting arpeggios. Bon appetit!

The first shall be last and the last shall be first:

Enjoy