Rating the Classics - Tangerine Dream - Zeit

3.58 | 158 ratings Zeit 'Largo In 4 Movements'
1972


This zeit (time), I'm doing Zeit.

Another album that people are quite divided on, which rating comes closest to your feelings.  Here are some excerpts of the reviews of the album at Prog Archives.


Proghead
PROG REVIEWER
Unbelievable stuff. This is truly an album that divides the listeners big time. Some call it genius, others call it a big piece of crap. Giving the ratings I gave it, I'm obviously with the former....


...nowadays , I never can listen to this more than one "song" at a time. What makes this music really difficult is that there is absolutely nobeat/rythm tracks to hook you. This music is even tougher than the studio side of UmmaGumma. In the genre , there has been much better.


A dark a brooding piece of work that would seem more at home in a industrial or cold wave catagory. But,this is TANGERINE DREAM to be sure!....

greenback
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Neo-Prog Specialist What a shame! The music consists in 2-3 humming refrigerators at the same time, plus a portative fan that turns back and forth to make the anyway inexistent rhythm, and finally a coming cluster of threatening killer bees!....


memowakeman
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator I am giving it 3 stars, because i like it, i think is a very good album, but at the same time i think is not comparable as many other Tangerine Dream albums, i mean TD has a huge discography which has been losing it`s essence of progressive electronic sound during the years, the 90`s or 00`s albums that i know are not so good as the 70`s jewels....


...certainly this is a difficult album for the newbie, and I would never recommend it to anyone as an introduction to TD (for that, I would go with Phaedra without a doubt). But there is something about this albums minimalism and lack of rythmic patterns that appeals to me in an esoteric, subconcious way....


To give this album 0 stars is simply foolish. But to give it 5 stars might not be exaggeration after all. This album is up there with all the other ambient classics. Definitely more experimental than any other Tangerine Dream album, and more hard to get into as well....


Seyo
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator I tried to listen to this 75 minutes collection of noisy sounds (it cannot be called "music") in one sitting for a few times but it was hell difficult. I admit total lack of comprehension of what TD tried here to achieve ... This album is definitely for TD completists or electronic music scholars only.


philippe
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Content Development & Krautrock Team A deep « abstract » universe offered by this electronic, semi-acoustic meditative Largo in four movements. The music is an « organic » & « orgasmic » evocation of the infinite beauty, illustrated by higher world. It touches the heart and the most hidden parts of our subconsious....


The defining album of space music. Works as ambient music but if you focus on the music it can be very introspective and really haunting, beginning with the sinister cello quartet overture. Like most classical symphonic music, it needs your close attention to be fully appreciated. This is a real timeless landmark.


This is actually my first time listening to Tangerine Dream with any amount of attention and what I am hearing is: electronic hums, bubbling synth percolations, occaisional high pitched keening. I kind of like it. Very ambient, but then again that kind of comes with the whole German-Electro-Pulse thing anyway...


Arsillus Very difficult, avant-garde music to assess. ... I find it not so much music as it is "sonic art." Zeit is hard to "get" and even more so to "appreciate," but persistence and an open mind will give you a reward. Not for the faint of heart, though.


loserboy
PROG REVIEWER
Honorary Reviewer German synthesizer pioneers TANGERINE DREAM reached the height of their early experimentation with their third studio album on 1972's "Zeit" (the German word for "Time"). ... "Zeit" is absolutely a wonderful headphone experience album with tons of dark synth and sound effect-augmented cracks and crevices.


... It's not the greatest anything, though, that's for sure. Some lovely sounds creep, emerge and compress, as if created by a retard high on some wonderful drug. It's Tangerine Dream's Zeit, lets leave it at that. It's a double album to boot, but I'd reckon they're having a laugh except for the fact that these geezers are Germans...


paolo.beenees Here is the album which taught me that music is nothing you must understand by all means; it can be instead something to let your mind flow and float with. I've played "Birth of Liquid Plejades" dozens of times and each time it sounds to me more and more beautiful....


Chris S
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator I have to add even whilst I am a 70's annorac for progressive music I always thought that Zeit was borderline annoying. Even accepting that I was probably wrong I do feel that Zeit tried too hard and was maybe just too obscure to even care too much....


thellama73 ...What we have is four extended, droning, dark, minimalist soundscapes without any real evolution or development. That is to say, very little happens over the course of the double album. However, if you put aside your expectations of sequencer driven electronica a la Phaedra, you may well experience a magical pre-Eno ambient phantasmagoria, and it is for that reason that I love it....


Eetu Pellonpää
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator ...This is totally perfect record to be listened when meditating, nocturnal long distance travelling, or studying the heavenly objects from books, computers or telescopes. In my opinion one of the essential albums of this group, being a real cosmic relevation.


russellk
PROG REVIEWER
No tunes, not even a hint of one. No evidence of a beat. Instead, layers of drone. Droning cellos, droning synths, droning organs, droning guitars, with gradual droning crescendos and droning fade-outs. Droning noise experiments. ...This is brave, this is genius, this is borderline comedy, this is insanity. It's either one star or five, so I'll split the difference.


Easy Livin
FORUM & SITE ADMIN GROUP
Site Admin & Moderator ...In all, a totally impenetrable album which on the face of it, anyone with an organ and a synthesiser could come up with. If you enjoy listening to white noise and other sounds devoid of music of any sort, this could well be for you. One things for sure, "Zeit" does not get any easier to listen to with the passing of zeit.


Frippertron I have most of the Tangerine Dream albums on CD, but I have a problem with Zeit. I just dont hear music just a lot of noodling with their keyboards to see how much they can make themselves sick. ... I would give this album a miss, unless your idea of fun is getting a migraine after 75 mins of wailing and droning.


Mellotron Storm
PROG REVIEWER
...Zeit" is German for "time" and Froese believed that time was motionless and only existed in our own minds. So it's no surprise that this double album is slow going. Funny but i much prefer it to the previous album "Alpha Centauri". TANGERINE DREAM offers up to us 4 side long tracks straight from cold,dark space...

...This is of course not an album for every ears (prog or non-prog ones). It is harder to get into ''Zeit'' than ''Phaedra'' but TD fans (or anyone interested in electronic music) should take the time to discover this work. At the end of the record, it is a rewarding exercise (at least I feel so)....


Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Prog Metal & Heavy Prog Teams Without doubt this is the most extreme of all TD albums ...Not the kind of album to sit and relax to, it is an important and impressive album in electronic music. Maybe not the best in this style (I prefer Schulze's Cyborg) but sure one of the more influential ambient works to come out of the electronic kraut scene of the early 70's.


tdfloyd This is a tough album or 2 to review. Devoid of any tradional music, sequencing, drumming, melodies or really anything pertaining to music as most people understand it....


infandous ...Certainly this is a difficult album for the newbie, and I would never recommend it to anyone as an introduction to TD (for that, I would go with Phaedra without a doubt). But there is something about this albums minimalism and lack of rhythmic patterns that appeals to me in an esoteric, subconscious way....


Guldbamsen
COLLABORATOR
Prog Electronic, Psych/Space, New Bands ...The problem with this album then is its inaccessibility. It´s a masterpiece in its own right, but I am so seldom in the mood for it, that it looses the attraction. It truly is a mental voyage to listen to this album, but more so a never ending hunt for the right mindset, which is a shame.


SaltyJon
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Zeuhl RIO/Avant & Canterbury Teams ...This one is one of the greatest Prog Electronic albums ever to be recorded. It shows just how far out some of the pioneers were willing to go, and that distance might as well be infinity since the universe is always expanding and this one is right at the edge. Definitely an essential masterpiece of progressive rock (even though the "rock" element is missing in this and many of the best Electronic albums).


octopus-4
COLLABORATOR
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl Team ...To enjoy this album (as well as most of the space-psychedelia), you have to forget the usual concept of music. Get your headphones, close your eyes and travel into deep space or any other amazing place your mind can disclose.  This album is a milestone in his genre.


Dobermensch ...My initial reaction was shock. Shock and bewilderment at the bloody awful sleeve that it came in. Looking like a scene from 'Tron' - it was an artistic blunder in every sense of the word. ...
[This album is] a triumph, but the best was yet to come.


This is a good album, not great. ... This is like a painting in a museum...you enjoy looking at it when you are there, but you don't want to come back everyday just to see it. I can't give this any more or any less than 3 stars.


R-A-N-M-A "The music consists in 2-3 humming refrigerators at the same time, plus a portative fan that turns back and forth to make the anyway inexistent rhythm, and finally a coming cluster of threatening killer bees!" - greenback.  This is the most stunningly harsh yet appropriate review I've yet seen for an album on PA. If only I'd read it, I might not have bought it....


Jazzywoman Though I do highly recommend most of Tangerine Dream's discovery, I cannot recommend this disc to people with short atention spans ... Though some see the album as a complete disaster of noise, it is a contributing factor to the creation of New Age and Ambient music. It's interesting how the band really puts together the sounds on this album, but it rarely has much connection with me...


First effort after Alpha Centauri; and first of all lacks the sense of innovation present in that work. But fortunately music here differs a lot, it is not a mere repetition of a formula used before; but it is also a music which is very difficult to be appreciated....


colorofmoney91
PROG REVIEWER
...This was Tangerine Dreams first experiment in purely ambient/drone focused music, and it isn't a failed experiment; Zeit is perfect for what it is, an atmospheric album that tosses the listener into oblivion. Anyone looking for music like Phaedra might be disappointed in this album for its lack of instant accessibility, but anyone willing to let this void consume their mind is definitely in for an amazing listening experience.


idoownu This is the greatest electronic album ever made ... Basically, get it, unless you are an electronic newcomer.


Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
...With four long, achingly (and beautifully) slow and languid compositions each covering a side of a double-album set, this is to Krautrock or progressive electronic what Soft Machine's Third is to Canterbury or Tales from Topographic Oceans is to symphonic rock ... Far and away the greatest accomplishment of Tangerine Dream's pre-Virgin Records period, Zeit is an electronic masterpiece.


friso
PROG REVIEWER
...Conclusion. Heavy, brooming atmospheres 'drones', only interesting for those who like to confront themselves with a serious amount of abstract, dark - but well played - 'music'. Four stars.

Love, love, love!
5 stars.  This style of music is easy to do poorly, and TD did it wonderfully!

Me neither.

Never really cared for ambient - never really cared for Tangerine Dream, but even they had albums I liked a LOT more than this one (Phaedra, Rubycon, etc.). By the way, I always preferred Here Come the Warm Jets over Discreet Music.

I like it, though it does sometimes strain to listen to it all at once. (Perhaps coincidently) The first two pieces (and the first one in particular) are fantastic.

Like drifting through space. Love it.

I've heard and liked quite many of the TD classics, but this one seems to have slipped by me.

I  do love greenback's review. It isn't that bad though. Possibly 2 to 3 stars from me but I need to listen again tbh.

I like ambient music but this album hasn't clicked with me yet.  I'm more in tune with the Phaedra-like stuff.  I wouldn't presume to give it an official rating just yet, because I haven't given it my undivided attention, but for the purposes of participating in the poll and discussion, if I had to rate it today, I'd give it a 2.

Edited by HolyMoly - October 14 2012 at 08:29

Dark, dark album. 5 stars! Good music to put on just before bed.