Biography
Walter Wegmüller functioned primarily as a mystic, visual artist, and noted eccentric rather than as a performer of music, yet the lone album issued under his name, Tarot, earned widespread regard as a landmark thanks to contributions from leading figures in cosmic Krautrock. This Swiss Gypsy had already established connections in the late 1960s alongside Sergius Golowin and the visual artist H.R. Giger, then extended those ties in the early 1970s to include Timothy Leary during the latter’s period evading U.S. authorities. Around the same moment, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser—rock journalist and founder of Ohr Records—launched the Kosmische Musik imprint to document additional expansive sounds, envisioning various visionaries handling vocal duties, an impulse that soon drew him toward Switzerland. Following completion of the label’s inaugural release, Seven Up, which united Ash Ra Tempel with Leary during autumn 1972, attention turned to the next two projects featuring Golowin and Wegmüller; by that stage Kaiser had assembled a core roster of players from Ash Ra Tempel and Wallenstein to serve across these endeavors under the collective banner Cosmic Couriers.
Having devoted several years since 1968 to crafting a personal set of Tarot cards, Wegmüller embraced Leary’s proposal to translate the deck into recorded form. Work commenced in Switzerland in late 1972, again with Ash Ra Tempel providing instrumental support, until Wegmüller expanded the concept to encompass a piece for each of the 22 major arcana cards. Impressed by the scope, Kaiser arranged for Wegmüller and Ash Ra Tempel to relocate to Germany, where additional musicians could be integrated. Wallenstein, whose keyboardist Klaus Schulze had only recently wrapped the Golowin sessions, therefore joined Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke of Ash Ra Tempel plus Walter Westrupp of the duo Witthüser-Wëstrupp, forming an impromptu cosmic Krautrock supergroup for the Tarot recordings.
Those sessions took place in December 1972 inside Dieter Dierks’ studios in Stommeln near Cologne. While awaiting the arrival of further participants, Göttsching, Enke, and Schulze used the downtime to cut an album of their own; because Schulze had departed Ash Ra Tempel after their 1971 debut, the resulting Join Inn reunited the band’s original members and incorporated spoken passages from Göttsching’s partner, Rosi Muller, who likewise supplied backing vocals throughout Tarot. The double album itself appeared in early 1973 inside an elaborate package that contained Wegmüller’s painted tarot deck. Consistent with the earlier Golowin release, Wegmüller delivers spoken narration on Tarot rather than conventional singing, surrounded by extended instrumental passages executed on a notably larger canvas.
Wegmüller returned to Switzerland while Kaiser soon channeled most of the Tarot personnel into an altogether separate enterprise called the Cosmic Jokers. In the years that followed, Wegmüller authored the book Neu-Zeit Tarot (New Age Tarot), issued in 1982 by AGM Agmuller Press.
Having devoted several years since 1968 to crafting a personal set of Tarot cards, Wegmüller embraced Leary’s proposal to translate the deck into recorded form. Work commenced in Switzerland in late 1972, again with Ash Ra Tempel providing instrumental support, until Wegmüller expanded the concept to encompass a piece for each of the 22 major arcana cards. Impressed by the scope, Kaiser arranged for Wegmüller and Ash Ra Tempel to relocate to Germany, where additional musicians could be integrated. Wallenstein, whose keyboardist Klaus Schulze had only recently wrapped the Golowin sessions, therefore joined Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke of Ash Ra Tempel plus Walter Westrupp of the duo Witthüser-Wëstrupp, forming an impromptu cosmic Krautrock supergroup for the Tarot recordings.
Those sessions took place in December 1972 inside Dieter Dierks’ studios in Stommeln near Cologne. While awaiting the arrival of further participants, Göttsching, Enke, and Schulze used the downtime to cut an album of their own; because Schulze had departed Ash Ra Tempel after their 1971 debut, the resulting Join Inn reunited the band’s original members and incorporated spoken passages from Göttsching’s partner, Rosi Muller, who likewise supplied backing vocals throughout Tarot. The double album itself appeared in early 1973 inside an elaborate package that contained Wegmüller’s painted tarot deck. Consistent with the earlier Golowin release, Wegmüller delivers spoken narration on Tarot rather than conventional singing, surrounded by extended instrumental passages executed on a notably larger canvas.
Wegmüller returned to Switzerland while Kaiser soon channeled most of the Tarot personnel into an altogether separate enterprise called the Cosmic Jokers. In the years that followed, Wegmüller authored the book Neu-Zeit Tarot (New Age Tarot), issued in 1982 by AGM Agmuller Press.