Seven Up is made up of an extended
improvisation that is divided into two parts – "Space" and "Time" – over two sides of the vinyl record.
David Stubbs writes in his
krautrock history
Future Days (2014) that
Seven Up is often considered to be "a bit of a mishap of an album, whose making is far more interesting than its outcome." Mark Prendgrast wrote in
The Ambient Century (1999) that
Seven Up is a "highly self-indulgent" album of Ash Ra Tempel
jamming with '
acid guru' Leary.
Jim DeRogatis writes that the 'acid guru' Leary howls "horny improvised
blues lyrics" under the album's "
psychedelic cacophony", saying it was taped live in Switzerland after Leary had escaped from an American prison. In his book
Gathering of the Tribe: Acid (2022), Mark Goodall notes that Ash Ra Tempel have admitted that
Seven Up is "a series of individual jams stitched together afterwards with
electronic washes of sound." John Bush of
AllMusic considers
Seven Up to continue
Schwingungens "bizarre, bluesy psychedelia" on side one, while exploring deep
space rock on side two. Bush believes Leary's fanbase would be surprised that is one of five voices peppered throughout the record and sometimes "sounds more like a poor man's
Eric Burdon than an acid visionary might", adding that the space jams on side two end with a rush of air resembling a
vacuum cleaner, the only part of the album "that acid and Kraut fans expected." Regarding its specific songs, Stubbs criticised the opening number, "Downtown", for being a "surprisingly lethargic bluesy clop that feels antithetical to everything on their albums hitherto", comparing it to their early pre-Krautrock incarnation, the Steeplechase Blues Band. He speculated whether Dierks bookended the opening song with "washes of abstract, hoovering electronics" (psychedelic in style) to compensate for the
lo-fi, rudimentary recordings and "general lack of sonic inspiration." Stubbs found side two of
Seven Up more impressive, especially for Géttsching's dominant guitars, "stepping off the edge of planet earth's blues into uncharted, cosmic recesses without any foothold." ==Track listing==