Zeit

There are four different main CD versions of this release. The first release in the 80s on Jive, along with a couple others in different countries, the first remastered 1996 version, the 2000 era Castle release with just the album and brickwalled sound on 3 tracks, and the newer Esoteric release with full dynamic range and a second disc of extras.Sound Quality is all up to your ears. The original which is a little crusty, although some people seem to like its sound from the old 80s ADC convertors, the 90s version which sounds fine, the early 2000 version which sounds fine but has a quite low DR on some tracks, and the two disc Esoteric to my ears sounds great and a bit more lively on the top end.Altogether I think the new Esoteric releases are mandatory for TD fans because of the stellar packaging. Some have said there is a bit of noise reduction, but I am not really hearing it to any harsh degree. New analog to digital convertors I am sure pick up tons of noise, and at any rate the sound is fantastic to my ears.I honestly cannot hear all that much difference on any of the remasters. I find the EQ just fine for the most part. The album still has a lot of noise on this 2011 release. One poster on Hoffman forums, who I find in every thread about Esoteric TD remasters, seems to think falsely that they have worse dynamic range. This is the opposite case for Zeit. All tracks actually have the full dynamic range here. I don't hear but a pinch of noise reduction and quite honestly these records need a bit of it.The cover art for the Castle Remaster and 2CD Esoteric are slightly different in color and tone. Overall, I find the Esoteric release to be totally satisfying. These old TD records can have too much hiss if you ask me, and they are still plenty noisy even with this new remaster. I for one am listening on quality hardware, and I find it hard to distinguish between the two at times.You really don't need to know much about this one for the actual content. It is one of TD's utter masterpieces. Innovative and enthralling to the end. "Birth of Liquid Plejades" may be the single greatest ambient/electronic track in history. Eerie and so encompassing in high-end headphones. Smoke up for this one and turn the lights off. There is nothing else quite like it.The rest of the CD is highly experimental and still of very high quality. The extra disc on the Esoteric presents two long alternate tracks from the era and a different spin on TD's abilities. Well worth the price for the stellar extras on this one. Zeit is well worth your money.

I have a number of TD albums. This one seems not to be for active listening. It is more like background music for relaxing. The first time I listened to it - both discs in one sitting - it seemed long, and I found it hard to just focus on the music because it drones on with very little variation. The next time was before bed. I can usually listen to a couple of CDs before I go to bed, but it took me 3 nights to get through the 2 CDs. The music seemed to make me feel sleepy to the point I couldn't keep my eyes open. It is relaxing, and maybe good if you need to sleep, but this is not really what I was expecting. I don't get music for a relaxing background while I am doing something else. Most TD music is not like that. I think if TD was going for that, they succeeded. This seems a little too extreme (too relaxing) for my listening taste. It is really just a constant droning with very little variation.

I have known this album for decades and I am definitely in the 'Love It' camp. This is early Tangerine Dream, before their breakout on the sequencer driven albums released by Virgin Records. There are no drums here, and while there may be some glissando guitar but this album is dominated by synths, keyboards, a mellotron and four droning cellos. Zeit is four tracks with each ranging between 16 and 20 minutes. Sections flow and then morph into something else. Faint sounds appear and eventually fade away. This is compelling but tough music which is best suited for headphones and no distractions. Nor is it something that you will want to spin often, but when the mood strikes, Zeit is stunning.The bonus on this release is a second disk containing 78 minutes of the Klangwald concert also from 1972. Where many older albums are given bonus tracks that are "one and done" in regards to the number of times it gets listened to, this concert is good enough to have been released separately.

My favorite CD edition of perhaps the most formative album of the ambient genre. This includes a second disc with a live improvised show from the same year and of such compatible nature that it is like an extension of the original album. To be fair to the fans who did the work, the bonus disk is a bit-for-bit copy of the fan-produced Tangerine Tree edition of the same concert, but since the Tangerine Tree sharing network was shut down by Edgar's request in 2006, this is by far the best chance to get a copy of one of the best volumes of the series. Add to that as beautiful reproductions of the original package art as can be had in this size, and an ample booklet with photos and information that may be new to even die-hard long-time fans such as myself, and this is not to be missed.

Zeit, the album is quite good with experimental sounds and a laid-back sonic landscape. The bonus disc, Klangwald,is also very good with a lot of experimentation, though the music is not as sparse as the album Zeit is.

This is a great remaster of the classic album, and it's all on one disc. The extra disc, which is of a concert TD gave in the Seventies, is OK but not an essential listen. Great buy, but only for diehard fans.

I decided to get this after hearing an interview where Steven Wilson stated this was probably his favorite overlooked record . After being admittedly obsessed with Mr Wilson's catalog of music I can clearly see now the influence this band and this particular release had on him...especially the Bass Communion and I.E.M. stuff

If you are looking into getting a tangerine dream album, this is a great place to start. Full of mystery and wonder and great bass and beats

I have had this LP on Jive Electro for a number of years as part of a boxed set of early Albums and rarely listened to it. It was seemingly one tempo'd and had no tune. Also the Jive Electro LPs sound awful, so not a good start. Bought this because of the live stuff and had a second listen to Zeit itself. This and the title track from Atem, plus to a degree the track Phaedra all have distinct feels, but perhaps the 'tune' is not apparent on first listening, but this is the same for most truly great prog music, so why not for TD, prog or electronic, or sophisticated mix of both. Zeit is the ultimate, in that it takes quite a few listens to notice the structure of the compositions, rather than something instantly pleasing. To me it was like discovering a completely new album, and one that, being generally so quiet, is perfectly suited to CD. There is a passages where this CD edition show the limitation of the Ohr master tapes on title 'track', but no other interference on the ethereal nature of the Zeit album itself and the hour and 20 minutes of live material, realistically the oldest available live recordings from the band. Again, give it time, it'll be well worth it!

'Zeit' is Tangerine Dream's most avant garde album of all... basically no rhythm, no melody, just 4 x 20 minutes of dark, cavernous, droning sound effects. However if you're buying this remastered repackaged edition in 2012, you probably already knew that! Personally I love it (the first track in particular, with its microtonal cello drones, is especially hardcore :)This Reactive/Esoteric release has done an excellent job of restoring the original artwork, and includes an insightful essay and extra photos - the packaging is a real treat.In terms of the remaster itself, I already owned the 2005 CD release by Castle. Reactive's remaster is actually *quieter* (a novelty in these days of loudness wars!), with a little more top end clarity and allowing the material to breath more (Castle's edition had compressed it a bit, which I felt over-emphasized the bassier drones).Another treat for collectors is a 2nd CD in the package, of a 1972 live performance at "Klangwald". The performance is in the same vein as Zeit: long drones and organ note clusters and extreme ominous eerieness. If you enjoy Zeit, you should enjoy this too! My one criticism would be the mastering of this live material: doubtless it was sourced from some pretty grotty old hiss-ridden tape, but they have subjected it to rather overly-agressive hiss reduction, producing audible metallic gurgle-wurgle artefacts as a side effect. I find it surprising that a professional mastering engineer would do such a hamfisted job of this (particularly when seemingly no hiss-reduction at all has been applied to Zeit itself). This does make me wonder if the fan/collector who supplied the original live bootleg tape applied to the hiss reduction himself? Still, it's fascinating to hear the material.

Been listening to this since it was first released and still love it. Very much worth a few listens to start to make sense of it. Continues to deliver a pretty unique musical experience (yes, I know there is similar, but this feels qualitatively different).

THE TD CLASSIC

I have a few favourite albums that I really love. My top favourite album for the past 34 years has been Grateful Dead - "Live/Dead". Tangerine Dream - "Zeit" isn't that great but comes really close. I don't know what to write about it because it stunned me - in a positive way. It really blew my mind. I can somehow understand why the great and late John Peel held this album as maybe the best "rock" album to be released in 1972.This album is not for party animals - unless you relly need something to soothe your tired inner self with!! This is music to relax to, to lay down with closed eyes and just BE.