Recorded in 2000,
Friendship marked the return of Krautrock pioneers
Ash Ra Tempel, though founding member
Manuel Göttsching had been making music under the name
Ashra on and off with a host of other players a few years after the 1973 breakup of the band's original lineup.
Friendship saw the reunion of
Göttsching and fellow
Ash Ra Tempel founding member
Klaus Schulze, who had spent much of the '70s, '80s and '90s amassing an impressive body of his own solo work. Working as a duo,
Göttsching's fantastical guitar leads and
Schulze's trademark synth pads are joined by more digital drum programming (also the handiwork of
Schulze, who had originally served as the band's drummer back in their earliest days). The album is made up of three lengthy compositions somewhere between trance, deep house, and hints of the early Krautrock experimentalism the band forged in the early '70s.