A.R. & Machines -

A.R. & Machines were a German Krautrock band led by guitarist Achim Reichel, an icon of Sixties beatsters The Rattles. He fronted Machines for the 1971/72 Polydor albums Die grüne Reise and Echo and the 1973 Zoo albums AR3 and A. R. IV.

Members: Achim Reichel (guitar, vocals), Frank Dostal (drums), Helmuth Franke (guitar), Manfred Rürup (keyboards), Jochen Petersen (saxophone), Frank Wulff (recorder, sitar), Rolf Köhler (bass), Hans Hartmann (bass), Lemmie Lembrecht (drums), Hans Boche (drums), Okko Bekker (percussion), Olaf Casalich (percussion), Carsten Bohn (percussion), Peter Hecht (organ), Dicky Tarrach (drums), Hans Lampe (percussion), Kalle Trapp (percussion), Norbert Jacobsen (clarinet, vocals), Klaus Schulz (vocals), Conny Plank (vocals), Matti Klatt (vocals), Arthur C. Carstens (Jew’s harp), Thomas Kukuck (drum machine), Karl Georg Steffan (bass), Churchill Jolobe (drums), Claus-Robert Kruse (organ), Peter Franken (drums)

Background

A.R. & Machines formed in 1970 in Hamburg when guitarist-vocalist Achim Reichel turned an accidental tape-echo discovery into a studio project with drummer Dicky Tarrach, percussionist Hans “Flipper” Lampe, and lyricist-producer Frank Dostal.

Reichel co-founded the Rattles in 1960 with bassist Herbert Hildebrandt. The group won a Star-Club band contest in 1962 and secured the club’s first regular engagement for a German band. The Rattles toured Britain in 1963 and joined The Beatles 1966 German tour, just before Reichel left the group for military service. Tarrach joined the Rattles in 1963 and later helped bring Reichel together with Dostal for Wonderland.

Reichel formed Wonderland in 1968 with Tarrach, Dostal, guitarist Helmut Franke, and keyboardist Les Humphries. James Last produced the first single, whose B-side “Moscow” reached No. 15 in West Germany. Reichel and Dostal became the principal writers as touring exposed friction within the lineup. Wonderland continued through personnel changes until Reichel turned toward separate experiments near the end of the decade. Reichel and Dostal also leased the Star-Club with Kuno Dreysse in 1969, but rising artist fees undermined the old club model and the venture ended in bankruptcy.

In the aftermath of psychedelia, Reichel no longer wanted to reproduce British or American rock conventions. He followed Ravi Shankar closely and attended sitarist’s concerts. Reichel also listened to symphonic poems and minimalist pieces by Terry Riley and Steve Reich. He sought longer, freer structures outside the compact verse-refrain format and four-beat meter of his earlier groups.

Early in 1970, Reichel plugged his Gibson Firebird into a new Akai X-330D tape recorder to preserve a short guitar motif. Reichel accidentally engaged the sound-on-sound circuit and heard the motif return as successive echo layers. He used the repeats to multiply single guitar figures into overlapping parts and made the machine a structural element of the music. Reichel then held weekly experimental sessions so musicians could learn the fixed timing of the echo cycle, with drummers monitoring the machine through headphones.

Dostal remained his lyricist and production partner from the Wonderland period. Polydor accepted the low-cost project on the strength of Reichel’s earlier record, and Reichel booked three days at Deutsche Grammophon Studio in Hamburg for the sessions that became Die grüne Reise.

Discography:

Die grüne Reise – The Green Journey (1971)
Echo (1972)
AR3 (1973)
A. R. IV (1973)
Autovision (Achim Reichel, 1974)
Erholung (live, 1975)

Sources

References and notes

Achim Reichel — “A.R. & Machines.” Reichel’s own account of the musical change behind the project. He identifies Ravi Shankar, symphonic poems, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich among the material he explored as he moved away from established Anglo-American rock forms. (Achim Reichel)
Achim Reichel — “Die Grüne Reise.” Reichel dates the recording to 1970 and describes the accidental Akai echo cascades that established the project’s central guitar method. The page also gives the September 1971 Polydor release date. (Achim Reichel)
Achim Reichel interview, KEYBOARDS, 1998. Reichel explains his dissatisfaction with three-chord verse-refrain rock, his interest in raga and symphonic forms, and the tape-machine routing that produced recurring echo cascades. (KEYBOARDS interview with Achim Reichel)
Achim Reichel interview, It’s Psychedelic Baby!, May 27, 2019. The strongest source for the formation mechanics. Reichel identifies the machine as an Akai X-330D with sound-on-sound, describes weekly experimental jams and the difficulty of synchronizing drummers to the echo pulse, names Dicky Tarrach and Hans “Flipper” Lampe on the debut sessions, and states that Polydor approved the project because his earlier bands were successful and the proposed recording was inexpensive. He also states that the album took three studio days. (It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine)
Achim Reichel — “Wonderland.” Reichel names the original Wonderland lineup and explains the breakup: the group was assembled from favored musicians, failed to develop stable internal chemistry, and increasingly centered on the Reichel–Dostal writing partnership. (Achim Reichel)
The Rattles — Dicky Tarrach biography. Tarrach’s own band biography dates his Rattles entry to 1963 and credits him with bringing Dostal and Reichel together for Wonderland. (The Rattles)
Achim Reichel — biography / The Rattles. These pages establish the early Rattles sequence: Reichel and Hildebrandt formed the group around 1960–61, won the Star-Club competition, toured Britain, and appeared on the Beatles’ German tour. They also place Wonderland and the failed Star-Club lease immediately ahead of A.R. & Machines. (Achim Reichel biography)