Simone Appolloni's Album Reviews
Zeit is a difficult album. Not exactly because of its insularity (Tangerine Dream have never been an accessible band), but because of its extreme length: 74 minutes. Compared to their other albums of the period, it's twice their usual length. It doesn't help the fact that this music is extremely ambiguous. But again, Tangerine Dream were never a band who played things straight, so it isn't a problem at all.
However, a first listen to opener "Birth of Liquid Plejades" should do the trick. The songs starts with atonal violin passages and then gets mystic, with organ drones below liquid synth lines that pop up through and through: it can be considered as the most distinct piece of the album (a sort of "highlight"). The other pieces don't fare as well. "Nebulous Dawn" starts as distant horn alarms that evolve into assailants drones, then into menacing aerial sonars followed by bubbling high notes and helicopter rumors. "Origin of Supernatural Probabilities" starts as a sort of quiet Chillwave melding of electric guitar arpeggios and synth lines, then evolves into a driving, spherical "rhythmic pattern" (because of the absence of drums in the album) that falls around the 13th minute mark, leaving its way onto decadent, fading chorus effects. At last, the title track starts as a sacral bed of low string lines, then it verges onto spirals of synth lines and while sonar-like electric guitar enters. Around 5 minutes, the track gets separated by synth lines that emulate waterfalls, evolving into a sort of a recreation of a spacey forest (graced by birds-like passages), then ending the album like a fader that brings back the memory of a cathedral: it's also the most uniformly quiet piece of the album.
In short, Zeit's ambitions often make the album unlistenable. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad: instead, often, the clash of sounds brings suspence and terror, and only a few passages on the first song recall Alpha Centauri (especially the organ lines), while the frequent hiss of the recording is even somehow remarkable, but Zeit is still a long, mind-blowing album that's definitely for those who have enough patience and imagination. Listeners who are not accustomed to this kind of Progressive Rock music should know this and take it like a warning.
Highlights:"Birth of Liquid Plejades".
However, a first listen to opener "Birth of Liquid Plejades" should do the trick. The songs starts with atonal violin passages and then gets mystic, with organ drones below liquid synth lines that pop up through and through: it can be considered as the most distinct piece of the album (a sort of "highlight"). The other pieces don't fare as well. "Nebulous Dawn" starts as distant horn alarms that evolve into assailants drones, then into menacing aerial sonars followed by bubbling high notes and helicopter rumors. "Origin of Supernatural Probabilities" starts as a sort of quiet Chillwave melding of electric guitar arpeggios and synth lines, then evolves into a driving, spherical "rhythmic pattern" (because of the absence of drums in the album) that falls around the 13th minute mark, leaving its way onto decadent, fading chorus effects. At last, the title track starts as a sacral bed of low string lines, then it verges onto spirals of synth lines and while sonar-like electric guitar enters. Around 5 minutes, the track gets separated by synth lines that emulate waterfalls, evolving into a sort of a recreation of a spacey forest (graced by birds-like passages), then ending the album like a fader that brings back the memory of a cathedral: it's also the most uniformly quiet piece of the album.
In short, Zeit's ambitions often make the album unlistenable. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad: instead, often, the clash of sounds brings suspence and terror, and only a few passages on the first song recall Alpha Centauri (especially the organ lines), while the frequent hiss of the recording is even somehow remarkable, but Zeit is still a long, mind-blowing album that's definitely for those who have enough patience and imagination. Listeners who are not accustomed to this kind of Progressive Rock music should know this and take it like a warning.
Highlights:"Birth of Liquid Plejades".
Was this review helpful?