Tangerine Dream - Zeit

Zeit was the first album of full-blown ambient music without any recognizable rock elements from the German space music pioneers Tangerine Dream. The band's fan base is divided on this one. The most favorable reviews for this album declare that this sounds nothing like the watered-down new-age infused synthetic muzak TD apparently degenerated into at the eighties and instead is an uncompromising, trippy headphone experience. While i agree with them to an extent, the album also is a bit overblown in its 4 sidelong tracks on 2 LPs (Soft Machine pulled off a better result in this format with their third record). As such, it is clearly demanding on the listener. The detractors write Zeit off as a total snorefest. While this is short-sighted, it would've been a masterpiece if some of the cuts would've been reduced in length. This album has plenty of interesting sonorities and effects, but it is hard to listen to the 75 minutes of it in one sitting. Moreover, the album is so sinister that it sounds very frightening. The compositions are not only slow, but completely dirge-like. Listening to this one many times might induce feelings of fear in the dark or even make one have nightmares, worse still.

The most remarkable piece is "Birth of Liquid Plejades" which is a three-part epic of quintessential proto-illbient music. Here TD utilizes the A-minor key in a nightmarish way, beginning with sinister cellos droning, creating a dreary, yet intense soundscape, segueing into a calmer section where Popol Vuh's Florian Fricke (who was one of the first Krautrock musicians to own a big Moog at that time) plays his plaintive solo on Moog, and the final section consists mainly of Pink Floyd-like pulsating organ played by ex-member Steve Shroyder. Other pieces have their moments, but one gets the feeling they messed around with all sorts of weird spacious sounds mainly because they could, the title track being the most blatant example.

Whether this is psychedelic head trip gone wrong; or self-indulgent doodling, one thing is clear. TD was yet to find their unique sound. But they were half-way there. They had got rid of their rock trappings, at this point it was a matter of time and a couple of albums before the vision of TD would materialize into something more identifiable and cohesive.