Zeit. I am currently outside of time - my life is being dictated by Ikea. One 5x5 expedit of things I value but don't want to weight me down. One 4x4 of things I cherish and can't be without. Everything else is falling by the wayside. This process started before this week and so I was surprised to find my copy of Zeit, bought prior to going to University in the great pre-Sheffield Krautrock binge, lurking in the 5x5. I've rescued it - thinking that there was a lengthy essay in the CD case but ironically enough it's just a quote from the book.
Zeit is one of those bizarre musical mysteries. Tangerine Dream, prior to this, had been an interesting but wholly inconsistent affair - much too unfocused. On this record, everything, is spot on and turned up to 11. It's the krautrock tour de force - a double album of 4 tracks - or four movements. There is a string quartet. Popol Vuh brings his moog along for the first track. It's an almighty record - totally beyond peer or description. Like the title suggests it hangs outside of any notion of time.
It's all incredibly ambient - no drums, no real rhythms just an incredible array of sounds and textures - like Ligeti at times all screams. That Fricke only appears on the first track is surprising - it's heavily like In Den Garten Pharoas throughout but way more intense. Brooding and frightening. It's also a little bit like the elder to Selected Ambient Works II - much more focused and much more effective. That I was prepared to leave this CD behind was just idiotic - it's an amazing record and, perhaps, the best one on the list? Maybe?
Awesome to hear this is actually good - Tang Dream usually leave me cold. But Fricke has a way of shoehorning spiritual into whatever he does. I've never bothered with it before, but will now. Thanks!
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