Customer Reviews

Zero Time

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Years ago, in the seventies, I sampled some of this album on a vinyl in a NYC Sam Goody's. Thereafter I must have listened to its timeless sounds thousands of times, until the vinyl was destroyed. A hard to find and now discontinued (why?) 2008 CD re-release gives new life to this super original, trend setting, prescient collection of great tunes and mind bending sounds. If you like Enigma, Jens Gads, Banco de Gaia, etc. you will hear T.O.N.T.O. in the midst of their sound. A ballsy album for its time, I consider its discovery seminal to my appreciation of this genre - only much later labelled "electronica". Actually Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" preceded "Zero Time" by a trifle, but between the two lie the footings and foundation of some of the most wonderful, era relevant and trend setting sounds. If these comments sound superficial, they are. Because the album is that good. The two musical creators of "Zero Time" never recorded together again. Their subsequent solo efforts were inconsequential. Greatness comes in small doses. Enjoy it if you can find it.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Cybernaut (4:32)

2. Jetsex (4:15)

3. Timewhys (5:07)

4. Aurora (6:50)

5. Riversong (8:00)

6. Tama (5:22)

This works fifty times better than it looks on paper. An early 1970s band working exclusively with synthesizers sounds like a toking cheese nightmare, but Zero Time is anything but.

Tonto's Expanding Headband use their chosen instrument here to create deep, rich, even txtures. Most of the album is filled with full shifting hues, with tasteful insertions over top. This music is too active and loud to be ambient--you would never spy Eno using sounds this big on his ambient albums--but works a futuristic, spacey motive. Even the solo sounds are musical, and so the album never sounds terribly dated.

Part of what works so well is that there was not a lot of music made like this in the early 1970s, About the only thing you could compare it to are the Beaver and Kraus albums of the same period. Tanto's planetary soundscapes are light years away from the Steve Reich loop method of Tangerine Dream.

Buy headphones, too.

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