''Electronic Meditation'' is the debut album by

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

group

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...

. It was released in June 1970 by record label Ohr.

Recording and release

The album was recorded in a rented factory in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in October 1969, using just a two-track

Revox ReVox (on-logo styling REVOX) is a brand name, registered by Studer on 27 March 1951 for Switzerland, Swiss audio equipment. History The first Studer-designed tape recorders were branded Dynavox. After the first production series of Dynavox rec ...

tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

. The first five albums released by Ohr Records, including ''Electronic Meditation'', featured sleeves by Reinhard Hippen, all with dismembered baby doll parts as a central aspect of the imagery. The original LP had a balloon inserted in the cover; the 2004 Japan CD release is a copy of the original LP cover and includes the balloon. ''Electronic Meditation'' is the only Tangerine Dream album to feature the line-up of

Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the gro ...

Klaus Schulze Klaus Schulze (4 August 1947 – 26 April 2022) was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried and was a member of the Krautrock bands Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and the Cosmic Jokers ...

and

Conrad Schnitzler Conrad "Conny" Schnitzler (17 March 1937 – 4 August 2011) was a prolific German experimental musician associated with West Germany's 1970s krautrock movement. A co-founder of West Berlin's Zodiak Free Arts Lab, he was an early member of Tang ...

. Two other musicians, organist Jimmy Jackson and flautist Thomas Keyserling, also performed on the album although they were uncredited in the original release. Schulze left the band before Electronic Meditation was released, and Schnitzler followed him shortly after.

Composition

Its style is a unique form of

free jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...

, electronic art music, and

instrumental rock Instrumental rock is rock music that emphasizes instrumental performance and features very little or no singing. Examples of instrumental music in rock can be found in practically every subgenre of the style. Instrumental rock was most popular f ...

; or as ''Sound on Sound'' magazine described it, "free electronic rock". Its instrumentation ranges from conventional instruments such as the guitar, organ, drums, and cello to various custom-made electronic devices implemented by Edgar Froese and found sounds such as broken glass, burning parchment, and dried peas being shaken in a sieve. The backwards vocals at the end of side B are of Edgar Froese reading from the back of a ferry ticket from

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

. Dominique Leone of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' described the songs "Cold Smoke" and "Journey Through A Burning Brain" as sonically related to the characteristic sound of Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze, "than anything TD became famous for". The song "Journey Through A Burning Brain", in particular, reminded Leone about the music from Schnitzler's

Kluster Kluster was a Berlin-based German Experimental music, experimental musical group formed in 1969 by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Conrad Schnitzler, and Dieter Moebius. Their improvisational work presaged later industrial music. The original Kluster w ...

records, with "unidentified sound effects and a hard-line approach to free improvisation". The next are considerably gentler than ''Electronic Meditation''.

Reception

In its retrospective review,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

wrote: "The album is not without its flaws, but it's strong in many ways and shows abundant promise". Stephen Dalton in his review for ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

'' described the album as "more an historically interesting cult curio than essential Krautrock milestone"; however, he added that "from sketchy but seminal basement tapes like these, an entire cosmos of sound was mapped." Music journalist Rob Young described the album as "landmark, .a gas-giant of a record, votive and solemn in mood, cosmic in scale, yet built of recognisable materials: mellotrons, analogue rumbles and amplified flute. Somewhere between improvised music, contemporary classical and the future direction of progressive rock."

Track listing

Personnel

;Tangerine Dream *

– six- and twelve-string

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. In m ...

s, tapes *

–

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

, addiator *

–

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, metal sticks ;Additional personnel * Jimmy Jackson – organ (uncredited in the original release) * Thomas Keyserling – flute (uncredited in the original release)

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1970 debut albums Krautrock albums Tangerine Dream albums Ohr (record label) albums Albums produced by Edgar Froese Albums produced by Klaus Schulze Albums produced by Conrad Schnitzler