Ash Ra Tempel Experience Live In Melbourne

2022 repress

I was invited to perform in Melbourne, Australia. It happened thanks to my dear old friend Mick Glossop, who made the suggestion to Sophia Brous, at the time the curator of a music-festival called “Supersense” at the Melbourne Arts Centre in summer 2015. In addition to the solo performance I’d planned, Sophia proposed an additional collaboration or session performances with some of the other participating musicians. I had never been very happy in performing “public sessions". I’ve always tried to first look for a conceptual approach, and my wife, Ilona J. Ziok, came up with the idea of performing some Ash Ra Tempel classics. That’s when the idea for an “Experience” was born. I decided that pieces from the second and third Ash Ra Tempel albums “Schwingungen” and “Seven Up” (both from 1972) would be most appropriate for a group performance with Ariel Pink, Shags Chamberlain and Oren Ambarchi. We conversed by email, and much to my surprise, they all claimed to be very familiar with this music. … It felt a bit like pushing at open doors - or, to put it another way - it felt like being welcomed with open arms!