Manuel Göttsching, the Ash Ra Tempel bandleader who went on to compose the electronic cornerstone E2-E4, died last Sunday (December 4), Göttsching’s website and German media report. A representative confirmed the news to Pitchfork. “The void he leaves behind, we want to fill with his music and loving memories,” reads a statement on the website. Though no cause of death was given, the statement says he died peacefully while surrounded by his family.
Göttsching made his name in the West Berlin underground scene in the late 1960s and early ’70s. He was a core member of Ash Ra Tempel, a krautrock linchpin with revolving members including Tangerine Dream’s Klaus Schulze. The loose, shapeshifting outfit released five influential albums between 1971 and 1973. Göttsching’s solo debut, 1975’s Inventions for Electric Guitar, was subtitled Ash Ra Tempel VI; from then on he mostly produced records under his own name or as Ashra, such as the 1976 classic New Age of Earth.
In 1981, after a visit to Schulze, Göttsching improvised the composition that became known as E2-E4, hoping to throw together some listening material for an imminent trip. That mysteriously perfect hourlong exercise, which combined Prophet 10 synth pulses with waves of electronic percussion and electric guitar, came to define his post-krautrock output. After composing the track, Göttsching later recalled, the billionaire and Virgin Records owner Richard Branson invited him to his houseboat and, upon hearing the track, advised Göttsching that it could make him a fortune. But Göttsching decided to release the full improvisation on his friend Schulze’s label, without overdubs, in 1984, and it appeared to have little impact.
Though E2-E4 sold poorly, it had—unbeknownst to Göttsching—made its way across the Atlantic and into Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage sets, as well as the collections of key electronic music innovators. A 1989 Italo disco rework by Sueño Latino made international waves, and Derrick May released his own remix in 1992. As Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson wrote in a 2016 review, the improvisation “wound its way across the world, morphing and changing with formats and remixes, finding new contexts, a music that is constantly in the process of becoming.” The cycle continued in 2021, when the British producer and Berghain DJ Barker released “E7-E5,” named for a typical response to the e2-e4 chess opening.
Göttsching has indicated that he struggled to recreate the magic of E2-E4. But he went on to release a handful of compositions in the ensuing decades, including 2000’s Friendship, his Ash Ra Tempel reunion album with Schulze. In recent years, he oversaw reissues of nearly all of his albums as a solo artist and with Ash Ra Tempel, while performing live around the world.
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