Electronic Meditation

In November 1969, Edgar Froese teamed up with Conrad Schnitzler (cello, violin and flute) and Klaus Schulze (drums), who had been studying and playing classic guitar at a younger age, but then turned to the drums in the band called Psy Free. This collaboration lead to a lot of experimentation with sound effects and tape recorders apart from the use of more conventional and normal instruments. They used whatever would generate any kind of sound!

The group rented an old factory building and started recording on an old 2-track Revox tape recorder. A demo tape came out of this, and it was handed over to Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, who had just founded his record company -- Ohr Records. Kaiser was extremely enthusiastic about their music and offered to make an album with Tangerine Dream on the condition that they accepted his suggestion for a title and what the cover should look like. Of course, Tangerine Dream went along with this offer even though the title, Electronic Meditation, is rather misleading; not a single real electronic instrument is used on this album!

Klaus Schulze: "We recorded and toured Electronic Meditation. That for me is the primary electronic album. Edgar played guitar, Schnitzler organ and me drums through loads of effects. We were experimenting with a lot of random stuff and were making up our own sounds. I remember Conrad had this metal cup full of these bits of glass in which he stuck a microphone attached to each machine. I played a lot of different percussive sounds that were then altered by machines. It was just great to be in a band who were open to so much experimentation." (Interview with Mark Pendergast, December 1994, Tangents)

Tangerine Dream's first album, Electronic Meditation, then came out in 1970. In music (?) and sound it describes (maybe?) the journey of a brain through different states of mind from birth to death! It was not a big commercial success, but with one album out, it meant that Tangerine Dream got more jobs as a live act.