I have no idea what an Ice Train sounds like, I don't even know if Ice Train's actually exist. I mean it sounds as if it should: Some trans-Siberian express with a snow plough on the front. I remember seeing a film called 'Runaway Train' years ago, it was about two escaped convicts who and a kid who all ended up on the runaway train from the title of the film. The one scene I recall happened before the train was introduced and was part of the convicts escape. It involved them crawling through a sewer chock full of human shit covered in cellophane. One of the escapees had a moustache and looked a lot like John Voight but was not infact John Voight.
Back to my original point, not least so I don't have to imagine somebody that isn't John Voight covered in cellophane washing human shit out of his moustache - Ice Trains. I don't know why Ash Ra Tempel called the opening track Ice Train, because whatever an Ice Train is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't sound like this. Not to say it's not a corking opener, it's just not very 'Ice Trainy'.
New Age On Earth came out in 1976, considered by many to be the year 'Punk' was born. It makes me wonder what was going on in Germany at that time. Could it be a case of German music immersing itself in fantasy to escape the painful reality of their recent past? Desperately trying to ignore the fact that the swastika was becoming something of a fashion statement as part of the punk rock movement across the channel? Or maybe they really did think they were star children sent from another galaxy to guide us to the glowing light of eternal happiness...
Ash Ra Tempel made a very real attempt at considering how 'future music' might sound, I just wish they hadn't been so wide of the mark. I wonder how Manuel Gottshing feels about how it really turned out: Endless, faceless dance music, rapness and spattering of ten year olds with guitars that makes up the majority of today's popular music? I also wonder what, armed with his knowledge of today's music Mr Gottshing might put together if he were asked again to consider the music of the future.
When I listen to this album I feel like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, I want to be dancing on a floor of alternately glowing squares, throwing unusual shapes with my arms and moving my hips as if my legs are encased in casts. This is what DAFT PUNK should sound like rather than being French dance music bumlords in expensive robot suits.
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