Ash Ra Tempel / Timothy Leary – Seven Up

Recorded in Switzerland where LSD enthusiast Leary was hiding, ‘Seven Up’ is skilfully edited from some bluesy  acid-soaked recording sessions. It feels like an album born in the post production as Leary-fronted blues sessions give way to wild electronic sound voids before fading back into those blues. A real clash of creators comes together here with Leary’s star power, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser producing, Tim’s right-hand man Brian Barritt being hands on and then there’s a heavily augmented Ash Ra Tempel too. Given that the release came out on Die Kosmischen Kuriere, it’s probably a fair bet that we are hearing Kaiser’s vision strongest of all.

For Side A, named “Space”, the effect is rather like a DJ had a blues album on one deck and an experimental electronic record on the other and kept skilfully blending them. Although it all segues together as one, there are separate “subnames” for the tracks and it is pretty easy to distinguish them. “Downtown” is a laid-back blues jam. “”Power Drive” is wild space rock. “Right Hand Lover” has an almost Stooges raw energy too it. “Velvet Games” is the fade out. Glueing it all together is some very monged vintage electronics, fizzing away like the musicians minds probably were. After all, the album is said to be named after the LSD-laced soda the musicians were drinking

Leary had some grand concept behind it as “a musical interpretation of this mind map system”, whatever that really means. The bottom line is here is another classic bit of way-out psychedelic rock from the German scene. Probably only a passing curiosity for Leary aficionados, this is an essential purchase for krautrock heads