ZWEISTEIN

Interestingly, George Harrison was one of the first people to hear this triple album which he had posted to him on completion. Goodness knows what he must have made of it... This is one whacked out weirdo album indeed.

Self proclaimed stoners and acid droppers, Zweistein flung together this beast in very short time. Supposedly they were big fans of Albert Einstein and that's where the moniker originated.

No conventional instruments are used at all. There's loads of effects, distortions and playful madness afoot. If you take Suzanne Doucet on her word - she said that she played this to Uri Geller in New York because 'mysterious tones' appeared on the 3rd LP that were not recorded in the studio. Geller turned round and said 'These tones are messages from Aliens!' Ahh... you've got to love the 70's eh?

Suzanne Doucet was a famous German singer at the time and used this name as a psuedonym. I can fully understand why...

Don't expect a good knees-up and party atmosphere with this recording. It's one of the strangest early recordings I've heard - probably on a par with and similar to Cro-Magnons 'Orgasm'. This is as self indulgent as it gets. They clearly couldn't give a monkeys about their audience. Now that's the kind of music I like...

There are a whole host of stories related to this recording. The most well known is the one where one of the female members allegedly slept with the producer in order to get the studio time and contract with Phillips records.

'Trip, Flip out, Meditation' sounds like a creepy late night fairground replete with sped up voices, daemons, squeaks and school playground antics all of which are squashed through phasing, flanging and echo effects. 'Phillips' apparently withdrew all copies and made no more after hearing the 'Trip' recording.

I could go on all day with one anecdote after another. Suffice to say, if you can find it (a tough call), buy it. Not as mental as the Residents from the same period, but equally as deranged. Tough to take in a 2 hour sitting though.

I rate this album 1/5 considering the "Only for completionist" rating system..

Originally released by the major "Phillips" label as 3 LP, this is certainly one of the most bizarre/avant-garde recording ever, while not really enjoyable musically, it is in fact a very interessant recording considering it's time,concept and goals..

This album turned to Legend for old days and todays krautrock amateurs, not only because of its ambitious triple LP vinyl release relating into the concept of an LSD trip, but because of its avant garde and the false conflicting story about the band. These multiple fact lead the band to an inevitable popularity on the Hardcore Kraut fans scene, the original vinyl disc is considered today as a rare and very sought after gem. A woman called "Suzanne Doucet" was behind the Trip Flip-out Meditation project and lead the concept entirely, contrarily to all the rumors turning around that album, that the producer secretely recorded this album with the band without the label authorization because a long love story with suzanne, are wrong, this concept actually began during the 1969 year and suzanne started presenting her concept to music labels.

Considering the music, this is simply a 106 minutes recording featuring massive studio collages, random sounds, electronic bizzareries that could be associated to Conrad Schnitzler "Rot" album or early faust mixed with Tangerine Dream's "Zeit" album, while I usually consider myself quite open minded and use to give multiple listenning to an album before a final judgement, I can say that at this point you can't really call it Music, rather "Concrete sounds" of stoned musicians intersected with some rare short folky melodies and singing reminiscent of Suzanne Doucet's old folk-singer days.

I recommend those interested to give this a listen just as an act of curiosity and interest for that old days when people sometimes tended to overmake their music, bypassing musical limits in order to get out of rational musical conventions... The result is musically not in my taste, but I always remain interested in such an intriguing historical music concept

Absolutely not common and a really ambitious project, "Trip-flip Out-meditation is a serious effort in 70s German psych/underground. With disturbing and confusion collage sounds, weird noises, home built instruments and organic stylistic "hypnotic" phases, Zweistein's music escapes to classifications. A various, inventive album with a surrealistic atmosphere. Totally unpredictable the opening track is a noisy, distorted combination of manipulated sounds, chaotic guitar chords. "Out" features a collection of different collage sounds taken from TV archives, then comes a shimmering, "elegiac" soundscape built around the electronic organ. "Wrong" carries on the last idea developed previously and stresses the sustained droning organ sounds. Some semi-eastern and stoned vocals punctuate the ensemble...a magnificent, adventurous composition. The next titles contain various abrasive electronic collages. The last track features a nice, humorous piano improvisation. Very eccentric, experimental, immersive but no normative aesthetic. One of the most challenging avant-rock / krautrock albums.

Zweistein delves deep into the realms of the German underground scene with this bizarre artifact. Released on the renowned Philips Records, Trip-Flip out-Meditation is a far cry from their staple catalogue. Its making was plagued by risks, resulting in the firing of the producer. Suzanne Doucet (the master-mind behind the project), through the 60's, was more widely know for her cutesy pop, but now, a new scene was rinsing from the German undergound, which had both perplexed and intrigue our young pop princess. She fell ill to obsessions pining to record a unique experimental album of epic proportions. What better way to undertake this dream via a liaison with a Philips producer!

Some site Trip-Flip out-Meditation as the hitch hiker?s guide of acid trips. Trippin' and flippin' is found in abundance but the Meditative aspect are few and far in between, more akin to a schizophrenic freak-out. The music consists of a conglomerate of miss matched ideas and sounds, spanning from childish babbling-chanting, to DIY electronic experimentation alongside dashes of lo-fi folk producing an intriguing tho' amateur sound catalogue.

Spanning over an enduring 3 vinyl LP this is doubtlessly a tiring piece of work. The ideology (if there is indeed any) is firmly within the realms of free-improvisation, rather than compositional based songs. Each lengthy track is fragmented into numerous smaller subsections, with a rudimentary flow in-between the differing sound experimentations, lending to a disjointed and jarring listen. Overall the album possess an inherently juvenile air, frittering from one short lived idea to the next.

In the wide scheme of sales and marketing, then record was a flop, within a few months most of the vinyls were disposed of, to be melted down for "better purposes". Released in a extravagant reflective silver jacket, visually the album is somewhat stunning, for this reason those eager enough to hunt down to original LP vinyl, you'll be confronted by exorbitant collectors prices. For most, I'm sure, there appetites will be appeased by the recent CD reissue on Captain Tip records.

While I do find some enjoyment in Zweistein's music, it is, too me, one of those long lost artifacts that could have been left uncovered. The ideas are rudimentary and the execution amateur at best, sometimes these are the ingredients to procure a hidden gem but this is not the case for Trip-Flip out-Meditation.