After the 2021 Re-Release of “Schwingungen” (MG.ART612) we proudly announce “Seven Up” as Part 2 of the authorised 50th Anniversary “A.R.T.” Re-Edition Series.\r\n“Seven Up” is the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel and their only album recorded in collaboration with\r\nAmerican Ph.D. in psychology, Dr. Timothy Leary. The Coverart for “Seven Up” was designed by famous\r\nSwiss Artist Walter Wegmüller. Recorded in August 1972 at Sinus Studio in Berne, Switzerland, remixed\r\nSeptember 1972 at Dierks Studios in Stommeln, Germany. First release in spring 1973 by OHR Musik - the\r\nfirst release on the new sub-label \"Kosmische Kuriere\", Kat-Nr. KK 58001.\r\nWe release “Seven Up” in a Re-Cut carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself, on September 9th\r\n2022, also being Manuel Göttsching´s 70th Birthday. Our Edition features the full original text for the “7 levels\r\nof consciousness” by Timothy Leary in English, i.e. “Instruction Manual for Pleasure Panel” plus a previously\r\nunreleased glimpse view of the original scripts incl. notes and mark ups as well as partly unreleased photos\r\nfrom the recording session. ->continued on page 2->continued on page 2\r\nAs for the music itself we again refer to Julian Cope´s review and remarks from his book “Krautrocksampler”\r\n(published by Head Heritage, 1st ed. 1995):\r\n“When the Leary Mob met the Kaiser Gang, the sparks flew ever Up-wards...\r\n7up is a stone classic in every way. Yes, it is unlikely to find Timothy Leary singing lead vocal in a cosmic\r\ngroup, but even weirder that he chose to sing a wild yelping freaked out blues !\r\nManuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke had begun their careers in The Steeple Chase Blues Band back in the\r\nmid-\'60ies, and they quickly felt their way through what Barritt and Leary were aiming for. They reconciled it\r\nall as a kind of West Coast chordless psychedelia, where blues riffs sparkle out of nowhere and the sheer\r\nweight of synthesizers renders everything with an unreal Pere Ubu/early Roxy Music quality.\r\nThe greatness of Ash Ra Tempel burned so brightly on 7Up that there is really nothing else like it. Hartmut\r\nEnke and Manuel Gottsching here returned to their riffy roots. It can hardly be called a retro act, though, as\r\nthe context of music is everything. And with Dierks at the controls, even the New Kids on the Block would\r\nhave sounded psychedelic.\r\n7Up is like a late night radio show glimpsed through a shattered tuner where all but the most truly dangerous\r\nsounds have been allowed to stay, to drift and to dance around the performers.\r\nThe result is an extreme gem, a flash of hysterical white lightning, and a pre-punk Technicolour yawn in the\r\ngrandest of traditions.\r\nIn typical Ash Ra Tempel style, the record is divided into two pieces, “Space” and \"Time”. Within this, though,\r\nTimothy Leary’s ideas are allowed to free-flow and the two sides are therefore divided into mini-songs all\r\nsegued together. The highlight of Side 1 is “Power Drive”, a West Coast burn-up that transcends any W.\r\nCoast music I ever did hear. Leary and Barritt present the greatest twin-vocal of all time, coming on like\r\nJagger and Morrison but too caught up in their own maelstrom to be anything less than Heralds of the Punkfuture still five years away.\r\nIn chaos it was conceived and in chaos it was recorded. Yet Dieter Dierks, the great Aural Architect of the\r\nCosmic Couriers, turned 7Up into a personal triumph and a Kosmische dream.”