TONE FLOAT

I got this one out of pure curiosity. I am currently reading Kraftwerk´s excellent biography Publikation and I was interested in learning a bit more about their early days. As I was expecting, this one has very little to do with the Kraftwerk sounds we all know. this is a far more experimental/krautrock/psychedelic act of the day. There are no songs as such, they are more like jams and seem to be more or less created at the moment. Although both main members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider are here, you´ll hardly notice. Lots of percussion by courtesy of indian born Basil Hammoud. In fact, the whole side 1 of the original vinyl is an exercise of percussive instruments laced with some other instruments here and there. I found it rather hard to listen to its 20:46 minutes of running time, although I must admit that some flute playing by Schneider is indeed interesting (he was much more an accomplished flutist than I thought).

By the end of side two things improve a little, which is not much, but at least the tunes seem to have a little more direction and melodies. Still, like so many other free styled jams of the period, it is not my cup of tea. Most of the stuff just seems pointless exercises that, if recorded, should be used only to pick up the best bits for use on more structured and and dynamic stuff known as songs. If it was not that flimsy link with Kraftwerk I wonder if this record would be of any interest at all (expect for those few who really enjoy this kind of music - and there were far better groups doing the same genre).

Recommended only for Kraftwerk completionists and die hard fans of long, improvised, spacey jams. 2 stars.