Organisation - Tone Float (pre-Kraftwerk release 1970)

Though only a footnote in the history of pop music, Organisation was the actual germ of Kraftwerk. In 1968, students Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider met at Art Academy Remscheid and decided to take new musical ways. Both classically trained on piano and flute, they had already played in blues and jazz bands. Together with three other musicians, who played bass and various percussion instruments, Organisation managed to release an album on RCA/U.K. It was quite unusual for a British company to sign a German band at this time, especially with that experimental sound. Sometime later the decision was questioned for sure, since the sales of Tone Float fell short of expectations. This was not very amazing, as Organisation mixed some half way conventional passages with wild percussion and alienated sounds. With this album, the band was far ahead of the time and created a new sound. They got to know that this was not everybody's cup of tea indeed, as there were vegetables thrown at the band at a concert in Berlin. Also a TV appearance at the Beatclub, German equivalent to British Ready Steady Go, produced discrepant reactions. One part of the studio audience seemed somewhat consternated, the other enthusiastic. A recording of this gig later was included on a bootleg reissue. In 1970, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider had already released Kraftwerk 1 without the rest of the band. The once normal band relation got cooler with time and broke down gradually, "The Robots" created their "Man Machine"-image. Organisation disbanded in 1971 because of the well-known musical differences. Kraftwerk drove the "Autobahn" to international success when time was right, while none of the other musicians ever appeared as recording artists again.

Tone Float is a very unusual record for 1970. There is no blues-rock, no guitar solo, and no catchy single hit at all. Though it contains some familiar parts, it is not easy to classify. The organ suggests early Pink Floyd, perhaps from the Piper at the Gates of Dawn album. And there is some flute and violin, sometimes played in a jazzy way. But suddenly the music leads into a percussion inferno, where the drum set sounds like kettledrums, with heavy gongs echoing, bells tinkling, and instruments altered past recognition. There are no common song structures; the tracks develop slowly and this can last even 20 minutes. The music is partly free in rhythm, as a title like "Rhythm Salad" already suggests. Sometimes there is an indication of the sound that Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider would develop later on the first Kraftwerk albums, but here there was no synthesizer.

AMG Review by Klaus Kehrle