Tone Float
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This obscure LP by German band Organisation sold few copies on its release in 1970, and might have been forgotten forever had two of the band members, Ralf Hütter and Florian Esleben-Schneider, not gone on to change the face of 20th century music with their next group Kraftwerk.
Organisation were one of many radical new rock groups who sprang up in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in a scene which has come to be known as Krautrock (although this was originally a derogatory term coined by the British music press). Krautrock groups generally pushed rock's format to new boundaries, making great use of improvisation and new electronic/studio techniques.
The Tone Float record is by no means a classic of the Krautrock genre, being for the most part rather unfocussed. The track "Milk Rock" perhaps offers the best glimpse of the Kraftwerk to come, with its powerful riffing bass guitar, and Schneider already heavily manipulating his flute using an EMS pitch-to-CV converter to drive other electronics.
The album has never been officially reissued, although bootleg CDs were distributed in the 1990s, often featuring an audio dub of an early Kraftwerk appearance on the Bremen Beat Club TV show as a bonus track.
Track listing
- (20:46) "Tone Float"
- (05:24) "Milk Rock"
- (03:19) "Silver Forest"
- (04:04) "Rhythm Salad"
- (07:46) "Noitasinagro"
Personnel
- Basil Hammoudi - Percussion, Bongos, Conga, Gong, Vocals
- Butch Hauf - Bass, Percussion, Bells
- Ralf Hütter - Organ
- Fred Monicks - Percussion, Bongos, Drums, Marimba, Tambourine, Bells
- Florian Schneider - Flute, Percussion, Violin, Flute (Alto), Tambourine, Triangle, Bells, Violin (Electric)