The early career of Achim Reichel really follows the same trajectory as that of all German rock music.

Beginning his foray into rock music Reichel was a founding member of the Rattles, one of Germany’s most popular beat combos from the middle portion of the ‘60s. Subsequent to that, his membership in the Wonderland Band found Reichel working to push the more traditional tropes of bland psychedelia into outer-space. And as a result of that relatively stale endeavor, Reichel set out on his own to indulge in some of his more experimental tendencies while he recorded as A.R. & Machines.

With the first release under the auspices of A.R. & Machines – which was intended to be just Reichel and a spate of electronic equipment – the songwriter was able to jam ‘60s psych, minimalism and polyrhythmic stuffs all into 1971’s Die Grüne Reise (The Green Journey). Everything about the disc was bizarre from the cover to the echo and delay drenched, winding guitar lines. As artistically successful as that disc was, it would be on the following long player that Reichel would release which cemented his acclaim.

During the early ‘70s all of that second rate German psych stuff was getting rearranged and spliced together with some new ideas to rock music including the synthesizer and repetitive composerly constructions. And while Reichel can’t be said to have pioneered the style, with Echo, released in 1972, the guitarist created a stoned stunner.

Echo pulls together a huge list of supplemental musicians to lend a hand to the double disc that is made up of five extended tracks, none of which are shorter than ten minutes in duration. Of course, instrumentation is the focus here, but it’s worth noting, not just for his name value, but as a theoretical brethren, Klaus Schulze contributes some vocals.

Regardless of who plays what and who gets on the mic during which track, the vast majority or Echo is a concerted effort to spin desolate, single tones of synthesizer into grandiose, chugging guitar repetitions. Reichel, of course succeeds.

Even some of the more staid efforts here, like “The Echo of the Future,” wind guitar loops into themselves to create cascading and sometimes dissonant clusters of sound. There aren’t too many times on the aforementioned track when a traditionally beautiful melody can be located, but the trebly guitar noodling should be enough for any kraut investigator to be entranced.

With the concluding track – “The Echo of the Past” – Reichel records a bevy of vocals. And of course, the majority of these snippets are seemingly layered in a manner as to obfuscate what’s being said throughout the track. There’re some yelps and groaning to be sure. And in stark contrast to the preceding tracks on Echo, there’s a sort of playfulness imbued in these rants until the synthesizer kicks in to announce the end of the album.

With that final effort being something of a disappointment, the four other tracks are necessitated to carry the recording. Luckily, they do.