Ash Ra Tempel "Best of the Private Tapes (The Early Years)" mp3s by FM Shades

This is too much. Here in the last month or two I've had my whole assessment of today's drone music landscape completely turned upside down by Emeralds, this young trio from Cleveland, Ohio, and just for the heck of it tonight I put on these "Best of The Private Tapes" mp3s by the early Gottsching/Enke/Schulze trio lineup of Ash Ra Tempel that I haven't listened to in awhile, as prepared and shared (still kicking! scroll down) by the great FM Shades blog, and.....FUCK. Waaaaay back circa 1971, with just guitar, bass, drums, and auxiliary electronics, Ash Ra Tempel had really already gone far beyond where even Emeralds are at. This music is simply THE BEST, pieces that last 30 minutes to an hour, the devastating "Amboss" and "Traummaschine" templates (aka sides 1 and 2 of the first s/t Ash Ra Tempel LP) worked from all sorts of angles. The "Amboss" template is basically an utterly still and silent inner landscape, thick with fog and what Julian Cope calls "heat-haze harmonics," that is eventually set upon by a thundering army of galloping demonic superwarriors (or maybe a biker gang). The "Traummaschine" template returns us to the original landscape - the warriors are gone, the dust has settled, the fog and haze reign again. You stare and stare and eventually you notice the angels that have been descending and ascending within the stillness, creating a shimmering ephemeral pattern not unlike a bejewelled mandala. Yep, angels and demons and play, as brought to you by the most droolingly focused ambient/psychedelic jam band in WORLD HISTORY. Ash Ra Tempel is the shit.