Tone Float

I feel compelled to write a review because the only other review gives it one star because it's an unofficial release; it doesn't comment on the music at all! To begin with the album is actually the only one by Organisation from 1970, the pre-Kraftwerk group that included Ralf Hütter & Florian Schneider, and as such it is very much in the same vein as the first two Kraftwerk albums. Personally I love it! For me, it's an experimental, weird-groove & ambient, psychedelic trip: purely instrumental percussion, flute & keyboard freak-outs wonderfully produced by Conny Plank. My understanding is that the problem, as with the first three Kraftwerk albums, is that Ralf Hütter has chosen to put a block on the album being officially re-released. As result, unless you want to spend lots of time & a small fortune getting a copy of the original 1970 vinyl, the only way you can get a copy is to buy one of the 'unofficial' re-releases (I don't know the full legal situation & I'm not sure many people do!). I have one from 1996 released by Crown Records in Italy and it sounds just fine. I would rather have a reasonably priced official re-release, but until Ralf Hütter decides to allow it I'll happily settle for unofficial; I think he has enough money to keep him going

Excellent, as I expected it.

This album combines the experimental sound of other "Krautrock" groups like Guru Guru and Faust with a unique character which was to develop into the band now know as Kraftwerk. Fans of their later music might be surprised by this album, which has more in common with the German psych tradition than electronica. An essential buy for all fans of this genre.

It's from the period back in the early 1970s when the first two releases came out--"Kraftwerk" and "Kraftwerk 2", before "Autobahn" and "Ralf & Florian". The 20 minute title track starts out with non-rhythmic percussion, which I thought of as noise. I've heard tracks that are like this, and I've also heard rock purists sneer about "self indulgence" as well as "15 minute drum solos" when talking about rock's late '60s/ early '70s "acid" period. I can't stand hyperextended drum solos myself--about the only people I know who like them are drummers themselves. But the track morphs into a Santana-like jam a bit over halfway through, with Ralf Hütter on organ and Florian Schneider playing flute in place of the guitar lead found in Santana's early releases, backed by Butch Hauf on bass. Only the flute isn't the free-form jazzy sound Schneider does on the first two albums. As you can see, the band goes by their early name--"Organisation". It wasn't until Hütter and Schneider took over that they became Kraftwerk.

I've had a fun time this past year collecting all of KRAFT-WERK's pre-AUTOBAHN albums. TONE FLOAT has been my latest acqui-sition and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by it, esp-ecially after reading what Pascal Bussy wrote about it in hisbook about KRAFTWERK. KRAFTWERK 2 was essentially, aside from the17 minute KLINGKLANG, a percussion-less album and not an albumthat I highly recommend. I really love KRAFTWERK 1...this is theonly KRAFTWERK album to feature real live acoustic drumming onit and also contains one of my favorite songs of theirs..RUCK-ZUCK. This song( at least the first three minutes of it), hasa very simple and catchy five or six note organ riff, over which FLORIAN plays several staccato flute lines. Underneath all this is somevery simple, but solid and supportive drumming and bass playing.There are times on this album where KRAFTWERK almost ROCK OUTin a very KING CRIMSON-like way( the 72-75 Crimson era). TONE FLOAT is complete improv, with alot of percussion instru-ments like bongos, congas, bell trees, glockenspiel, etc..and isa softer album than KRAFTWERK 1, more of a relaxing, pleasantlisten, tho I wouldn't quite call it ambient. It sounds almostnothing like their other stuff and I can barely memorize any ofit. The organ playing brings to mind PINK FLOYD between 67-70. There are vocals here, but no real singing, just occasionalchanting. All in all, not a very "organized" sounding album, tho'it is very "organic" and some of the percussion playing on thetitle track is very drum circle like. I recommend it!

Awesome!

early kraftwerk very good

I absolutely love this album & can listen to it over & over. This is the missing link of how the developing Kraftwerk (circa 1960/1970) used acoustic instrumentation instead of synthesisers to build multiple layers of rhythms with washes of keyboards, flute etc.The 1st title track going for a little over 20 minutes sounds like a collision between Tangerine Dream's 'Alpha Centauri' & Pink Floyds Ummugumma which for my ears is as close to heavenly experimental space music as I could dream of. Silver forest is another favourite track which is darkly ambient & certainly conjures up a vivid ice forest. This album is mysterious, powerful & many layered & deserves much more respect than hey Kraftwerk hadn't found themselves yet. Love it endlessly :)