Zeit

Edgar Froese: "Those early records were influenced by Pink Floyd. Zeit was probably our most avant garde album, but it was a direction we chose not to follow. Life has to change."

Chris Franke: "Floyd's Ummagumma was the first really experimental rock album. Until then you simply had improvisation like Hendrix and Cream."

(Interview with Johnny Black, thisBEAT, issue 17, April 1986)

In 1972, the double album Zeit came out, and this can be said to be Tangerine Dream's longest step away from the rock-orientated music. It has been called the longest Largo in the world (76 minutes) and in four movements, the album is also completely free of any rhythms and senses of pulse. Carpets of sound moving slowly in and out between each other sound colours changing all the time.

As guest musicians there were four cellists, Steve Schroyder on the organ and Florian Fricke from the band Popol Vuh. Fricke was supposedly invited because he was one of the first people in Germany who had a big modular Moog synthesizer...

The music was also marked by another instrument, the Mellotron, which was an early kind of sampler that could play small tape loops with pre-recorded sounds. It was especially acknowledged for its very good strings and woodwinds, but it was a very difficult instrument to play and at first classical musicians were afraid that the Mellotron would eventually replace them:

Froese: "We put our headsets on one ear and then we were listening to the tone of the Mellotron while already started playing our stuff. Then by listening to the 440 Hz out of the oscillator, we were tuning the Mellotron against it. So it was the only way of doing it, and that had to be done about ten times during the gig of two and a half hour. Looking back to those days, that sort of adventurous fear, not knowing if you will overcome a good, a bad concert, out of tune concert, or whatever. Today everything, it's much better tuned, it's nearly perfect, but it's not having a wild ride through the jungle any more." (BBC Radio 2 -- December 17th 1997)

Froese: "A couple of hours prior to the start of the gig [Albert Hall '75], someone came along and said "They [the Musicians' Union] are asking for a couple of thousand pounds, for you're using an orchestra. You are not using THEM, you are using your bloody keys, here. THAT's an orchestra". So there was a bit of a fight going on backstage and so we had to pay something, that night." (BBC Radio 2 -- December 17th 1997)

Tangerine Dream were now seriously beginning to create the electronic sound that would be the band's trademark, and on 25th November 1972, Tangerine Dream gave their first concert with electronic instruments only. It took place at the broadcasting studio of WDR in Cologne and lasted for about 50 minutes.

Photos from the 2011 Zeit Boxed Set

Thanks to Jacob Pertou for providing these photos on his blog.

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