ELECTRONIC MEDITATION

For the Tangerine Dream's debut I think I can identify contemporary classic, Terry Riley and maybe Ron Geesin or similar artists in the influencers. The sound is not yet so electronic, there's plenty of acoustic instruments instead and the impression received is of a number of improvised jam sessions recorded on the fly like for the (poor) Amon Duul's debut, but with lot of instrumental skill more. This is very true for at least "Genesis".

"Journey Through A Burning Brain" starts spacey and unstructured, then the organ plays an harmonic sequence of chords "disturbed" by sliding down notes of the guitar, a clean bass note and some percussive sounds, probably caused by hitting the bass pick-ups with a string. The organ emerges and disappears several times between the discordant sounds. After 5 minutes things change: an acid electric guitar, quite bluesy, and some percussions turn the suite into a more typical Krautrock mood. The guitar riff becomes more chaotic when the drums increase the rhythm. Now it's a sort of acid-rock, like when Jimi Hendrix was totally stoned. Other 5-6 minutes of this stuff and a coda of organ and flute closes the track. The little dissonances over the organ chords have the spirit of Arzachel's "Yogsototh", but it's just one minute.

One thing about the organ: I think that "Farfasia" is a mistyping which stays for "Farfisa".

"Cold Smoke" is more interesting. It's highly experimental and I'm sure that it's one of the tracks because of which some reviewers rated this album very low. Discordant sounds with no rhythm, the a rhythmic drumming like Nick Mason on the middle section of Saucerful of Secrets. In the second half of the track, Edgar Froese plays another bluesy guitar solo which fades from one stereo channel to the other while Klaus Schulze supports him with the drums. The Tangerine Dream will abandon this kind of music after this album. I think this is why they are not considered a Krautorck band.

"Ashes to Ashes" doesn't have anything to do with Bowie. It's a short Floydian track, a sort of Careful With That Axe Eugene without screams. The noisy sounds give it a krautrock flavour but it's mainly a psychedelic track. Other than Floyd I think it pays a tribute to Doors, too.

"Resurrection" is the most melodic thing of the album. Major organ chords and somebody's quite distorted voice speaking in a language that I don't understand (German?, English?). After one minute it turns back to space-rock with keyboard, cello and percussions. This track is just a closer.

The krautrock side of Tangerine Dream. For "aficionados".

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