EDGE OF TIME

Now here is a superb find for all those who love early experimental Krautrock. "Edge Of Time" is a pure holographic folk-avant garde album recorded in early 1970 by a quartet with members from Germany, Poland and Hungary. Dom definitely reside more on the acoustic dreamy side than on the electric side with soft hand percussion, acoustic instruments, space synths and lots of flute. No question these were a true astral quartet who thru their hallucinogenic music will take you on a voyage into space. I hear traces of early PINK FLOYD, AMON DUUL II and even CLUSTER in their music, but overriding DOM's music is original. Second Battle have done a fantastic job in preserving and re-mastering this album to perfection with tons of great bonus tracks and interesting artwork. Electronic progressive psychedelia at its finest.

Edge of Time is a mesmerising psych acoustic « trip », blowing away Pink Floyd at their most « spacey » moments. This is really in German style, original kraut experimentations with organ.A very interesting release whose concept is based upon acid « test ». Their sound perfectly illustrates a psychedelic, meditative landscape. The approach is rather folk, poetic and dreamy, similar to Mythos self title album and others krautrock obscurities. The opening track starts with a peaceful acoustic guitar / flute dialogue, then comes the acoustic percussions, accelerating the rhythm. The track is punctuated by mysterious, deeply celestial organ parts, bells echoes and « weird » noises. « Silence » explores the labyrinth of our subconscious with soaring organ sounds, repetitive acoustic guitar parts and strange, atmospheric voices. After a short break of electric « chaotic » noises, mixed with flute, the climax gradually descending into silence with a heavy bass "drone". The title track begins with a bunch of hallucinatory, cacophonic noises suggesting the coming of a floating, tranquil atmosphere played on acoustic guitar and organs. The track ends with English recitative, explaining the concept of the album. « Dream » which closes the album features a fascinating, tranquil, melancholic mix for acoustic guitar and organ + a strange, psychedelic atmosphere created by manipulated sounds and xylophone. A very attractive, « primitive » acid folk album. A masterpiece that culminates the genre

Privately released album that was Dom's sole output. This (standard prog) quartet from Düsseldorf was made-up of Hungarian-born Von Baksay brothers on bass and drums, guitarist Duzakowski (most likely of Polish origins) and keyboardist Stopka (there is a chance that he is from German stock), but most of them played two or three instruments, including flute for two of them. Musically, they sounded like Saucerful or Live Ummagumma-Floyd with many passages that the pink-years Tangerine Dream would not disown if it were theirs. Between ethnic folk, cosmic music and pure psychedelia, this album is really a product of its time. The album contains four fairly long mostly instrumental tracks and came with a very bland fuchsia cover (at least the limited Cd series of '92 did), a very basic production (but fitting well the climate of the album) and a real acid-trip soundtrack (the group's named referred to one).

The opening Introitus starts on a gentle flute-guitar duo that seems to come out from a hippie pastoral fantasy soon accompanied by superb percussion. After having derailed into a dissonant digression, the track is pulled back by a deceptively delicious organ bringing back the percussion of the start, then coming to a sudden stop. This is followed by Silence, which is a very spooky affair that started rather innocently psychey with some imbedded vocals, but soon reached Zeit-period Tangerine Dream nightmarish waves to end in a quiet Hammond layer. The title track is no less-spooky really starting where Silence had left off, but it soon develops in a Floyd soundscape (I am thinking of More, here) with spoken lyrics (printed on the front cover) and soft ambiances. The closing Dreams starts out with a lengthy percussive intro, before a bell brings the track to a halt, allowing for a quiet guitar and aerial Floydian organs (thinking of Eugene's Axe in this case) to rule for a few minutes before TD soundscapes appear again

Of all the albums in this database, I think that there are very few more mind-blowing albums than Dom's sole outing. While not really essential (you'll probably have a real hard time finding a copy unless a new reissue comes), this album is certainly worth a listen if you get a chance to lay an ear on it, so I'll easily give it a fourth star.

This was a real trip ! Actually it's a concept album (I guess you could say) about taking an acid trip.These four guys are very talented mult-instrumentalists.The percussionist and the bass player are brothers who escaped the Soviet invasion of their country Hungary, while the guitar player is from Germany and the organ player is from Poland.The music is very spaced out Psychedelic / Folk with the acoustic guitar, percussion, flute and organ leading the way.

"Intruitus" opens with acoustic guitar and gentle flute before strummed guitar and percussion take over.The melody stops as we hear various sounds until the organ rises out of this chaos and gathers strength.The guitar and percussion come back as the soundscape speeds up and gets louder. "Silence" opens with waves of organ as strummed guitar comes in. Words are spoken softly and we can hear vocal melodies as well. It gets kind of strange (acid trip) after 4 minutes with voices, odd sounds and flute. It ends with some spacey organ play. The first two minutes of "Edge Of Time" is a trip in itself, then the gentle acoustic guitar and flute arrive. A more aggressive sound comes in after 4 minutes. The mood and tempo changes continue. We get some spoken vocals with strummed guitar until the flute replaces the vocals.

"Dream" opens again with various noises and sounds before the guitar replaces them. Organ and percussion arrive and then it gets freaky again (like the intro) 6 minutes in. The bonus tracks are well worth having.The first track is a four part song called "Flotenmenschen". The first two parts are quite hypnotic while the third part is strange sounding and the final part is just plain spooky. The final bonus track is called "Let Me Explain" and the first 3 minutes sound really cool the way they have arranged and used the vocal samples, you need to hear this.Then we get a beat that reminds me of early PORCUPINE TREE.

This is a gem and if you're into Krautrock or Psychedelic music you may want to take this trip.

Edge of Time is one of the highlights of the folk-on-acid lineage in the Kraut dynasty. It's an amazing trip, one that has dreamy acoustic space-folk as well as far-out sonic experiments and proto-industrial noise. It's the only album of a somewhat obscure international Krautrock band Dom which united musicians from Hungaria, Poland and Germany.

The album was first issued on CD in 1994, a dodgy affair copied from a scratchy old vinyl. The issue to get is the 2001 'Second Battle' CD, which pairs the original 1971 album to a couple of 1972 demos and a one-off 1998 recording of the Hungarian v. Baksay brothers. It's amazing how perfectly it all blends in with the original material from the 70s.

But the original material is sure the focal point, offering four 9-minute improvisations that explore the pastoral-psych path that Floyd briefly touched in 68-69 but left all too quickly again. Fans of the style will hear the mood and quality of songs such as Julia Dream, Careful with That Axe and Cirrus Minor. They get mixed with the sonic chaos of the Ummagumma studio album.

The songs are mostly instrumental but for a few whispered words and wordless oohs and aahs that float along with the music. On the parts where drums join you will also hear flashes of early Hawkwind, most notable on the title track which drones along in true Master of the Universe fashion. But this album predated In Search of Space so here is where you look if you want to know what mr. Brock was listening to in 1970. Also the band Mythos owes a lot to this album.

It took me ages to track down a properly priced CD of the album, but at last I found one in a record-shop not even 5 minutes from where I live. The message learnt, never despair! (and go living in Antwerp:) This albums is a must have if you want to claim a Kraut collection of serious standing. A near masterpiece.

The main sequence of Krautrock superstars cast a long shadow across the 1970s, and hidden in the darkness were some overlooked treasures. Like this minor but precious gem from early in the decade: a one-shot project from a band few people (myself included) know much about.

Background info about the group is sketchy, at best. It was formed by two refugee brothers from Hungary after relocating to Düsseldorf; their one and only LP was privately pressed (hence its relative obscurity); and the music on it was supposedly meant to represent an acid trip gone bad (don't they all, in the long run?)

But what a trip it must have been, and continues to be today. The album is structured almost like a soundtrack to the end of innocence, divided into four long segments but really a continuous 36-minute odyssey through inner space, ranging in mood from serene to chaotic and (almost) back again. Along the way is some truly beautiful, often haunting, and sometimes scary music, beginning with the disarming Krautfolk of "Intruitus": a friendly gathering of hippies, complete with bongos, flute, and gently strummed acoustic guitars.

But don't let your guard down too soon: the music gets progressively weirder as it continues. Some of it recalls the near-death nirvana of early KLAUS SCHULZE (imagine a slightly more organic "Cyborg"); elsewhere the album approaches the uneasy bliss of an out-of-body dream state. And an almost NEU!-like motorik undercurrent surfaces on the title track, just before the otherworldly stoned poetry reading, quoted in part on the bare-bones album cover.

Other bands have tried to musically recreate a psychedelic experience, usually ending up with a lot of self-indulgent nonsense. But these guys must have at least taken a road map along for this particular trip. Imagine if the surviving members of THE PINK FLOYD had followed Syd Barrett's sad example and developed a harder drug habit: they might have made this exact same album a year or two earlier. Edge of Time? Edge of Sanity is more like it, and listening to the album is as close as an old but sensitive fuddy-duddy like me ever wants to get to a tab of lysergic acid diethylamide.

Dom never released another LP. Either they said it all right here, or else never recovered from their chemical research and development. But the rarity of this one effort only adds to its uncanny aura, still effective over forty years later.

[ Consumer windfall: the bonus tracks on the CD reissue mesh well with the lysergic melancholy of the original album. The oddball track, and one of my favorites, is the last one: "Let Me Explain", recorded three decades after the "Edge of Time" sessions and sounding like a tongue-in-cheek HOLGER CZUKAY sampling experiment, or maybe a Krautrock outtake from the Eno/Byrne album "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". ]

One-album wonders Dom put out their sole album, Edge of Time, at a point when the whole "make an entire album of loose improvisational jams in a trippy mode" deal was already beginning to get a little stale - a bunch of albums in this vein had already come out and heaps of Krautrock bands were putting out similar efforts. But it manages to distinguish itself from the others, and somewhat justify its "lost classic" status, with the care and skill in evidence on the part of Dom themselves.

As on Tangerine Dream's debut album, early Pink Floyd seems to be the major inspiration (and in particular, the track A Saucerful of Secrets seems to be taken as the gold standard in space rock as far as these lads are concerned), and certainly if you dig Tangerine Dream's Electronic Meditation or the live disc from Ummagumma there's a lot to like on here.

Hypnotic, maddening, hallucinogenic...The sole album from 1970 by Dom, a group consisting of members from Germany, Hungary and Poland, `Edge of Time' is an atmospheric, precious and damaged Krautrock classic. Comprised of four trippy improvisations of space music, it's a mix of late 60's Pink Floyd, early Tangerine Dream and the Ash Ra Tempel, with acoustic acid-fried folk moments, avant-garde explorations and a lengthy psychedelic ambience. A predominately instrumental work that soundtracks the consequences and mental distortions resulting from a `bad trip', the effects of the music remain with the listener forever.

Dreamy flute wisps around delicate acoustic guitars strums and hand percussion growing more urgent in the opener `Intruitus', bringing an almost raga-rock quality that makes this as much a journey into the mind as it is to deep space. Panning mechanical harshness and electronic distortion takes over, swirling in a vortex of the most eerie, regal yet mournful organ that drones into infinity. The voyage takes a bad turn as the musical strains bend and twist. Electronic washes fade in and out during `Silence', harrowing other-worldly despairing wordless sighs gently cry into blackness. Voices whisper through the dark, taunting right beside you yet always out of earshot. Humming machine oscillations, distant explosions and somber reflective flute trickles along your mind.

Howling machine white-noise and abrupt cymbals crash alongside lazy acoustic guitar that floats behind the most tasteful shimmering organ this side of Rick Wright in the title track `Edge of Time'. Gloomy synths groan with a senses-shredding madness, as if you're caught up in an overwhelming rapture. A rambling stream-of-consciousness voice floats amongst meditative flute, reassuring as it is fraught with unease and mind-numbing fear. `Dream' contrasts insane crashing and clanging metallic percussion with oddly comforting and placid contemplative flute and guitar passages.

If you connect with this album, it has the chance of becoming a truly immersive, addictive and spiritual experience. You won't listen to it all the time, but when you do, it completely captivates and overwhelms you with its fragile beauty and intoxicating psychedelic flavours. It avoids the plodding musical heaviness of endless other Krautrock works, replacing it instead with an emotional, mental weight that crashes down and around. A total classic full of rambling lysergic beauty, `Edge of Time' is truly music to become lost in, and Krautrock fans should track down a reissue right away. Absolutely essential.

Five stars.

I am so glad to discover this multi-national group (Hungarian, Polish, German) DOM. It's too bad this album isn't more widely available like many other great Krautrock bands. Maybe if Edge of Time was on Ohr then you'd be seeing more widely available reissues that say, the ones on Second Battle and a couple others (used copies of the reissues aren't cheap, but not as expensive as the original LPs). The album was originally released on Melocord, although since that time it's became a real collector's headache due to repros floating about. This would have easily fit on Ohr as it's very much in that similar style to many of the groups found on there. I get reminded of the more "far out" moments of Pink Floyd, such as "A Saucerful of Secrets", "Careful With that Axe, Eugene" and "Cirrus Minor" crossed with Kosmische folk and a bit of Alpha Centauri-era Tangerine Dream. The music tends to be laid back, with a rather ominous vibe throughout. This album really truly blew me away. The production is top quality, the production is much better quality than the first two Tangerine Dream albums, you'd never know this was released on some tiny label, but what really matters is the wonderful spacy vibe I dig. Now if a new reissue becomes available at a reasonable price, I can seem many Krautrock fans taking to this, this is one of the finest obscure Krautrock albums you'll hear!

One of the most mysterious bands to emerge from the early 1970s Krautrock boom surely must've been the Düsseldorf based DOM which was one of many acts of the era to release one album and then disappear into the ethers. This band was also unusual in that it was centered around the two Hungarian Baksay brothers, Laszlo Baksay (bass, vocals) and Gabor Baksay (percussion, flute, vocals) who had escaped their homeland after the Russians invaded, moved to Austria and then found their way to Germany. The band also included the Polish born Reiner Puzalowski (guitar, flute, vocals) and the only native German on board Hans Georg Stopka (organ, guitar, vocals).

While this band has remained mysterious for many decades since its album EDGE OF TIME hit the scene in 1972, the album has since been remastered with bonus tracks and Gabor Baksay has since granted interviews to shed some light on his project that has become one of the classics of the Krautrock underground in the ensuing decades. The original vinyl pressing of EDGE OF TIME was purportedly riddled with production woes which made the album a bit of a mixed bag but the album's flaws have since been corrected with the proper remastering on the 2001 CD digipak released by Second Battle.

While Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful Of Secrets" provided the big bang of psychedelia taken to the utmost extreme, the band didn't nurture that particular track's possibilities and by 1969, an escapist's movement called Krautrock picked up the torch in Germany and ran with it. While many bands took the Pink Floyd influences to heart, some were more brazen in their approach than others and that's exactly where DOM comes in. EDGE OF TIME combines the diverse elements of cosmic folk, ambient and avant-garde sound effects which drift on through four tracks with heavy uses of acoustic guitar, flutes and organs in what perhaps is one of the gentlest breezy examples of the entire Kraut scene.

Other than the moments of "Saucerful Of Secrets" tricks, Pink Floyd also proves to be the primary artist of influence with similar mediative elements mined from tracks such as "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun," "Quicksilver" or the beginning of " Be Careful With That Ax Eugene." Lyrics are almost non-existence but vocals aren't as they are mostly used as wordless utterances that add varying tones and textures however there are some spoken English parts towards the end of the title track. Add to the mix a rich admixture of vibraphone sounds, bells, humming, hissing and a plethora of oscillating electronics and it's readily apparent why DOM has been lauded as one of the greatest far out trips of the entire early Kraut scene.

DOM excelled at crafting a free-flowing consciousness experience that simulated a darkened dream state where drones provide a canvas to paint upon and a rotisserie of varying sounds punctuate the monotony like a procession of lallygagging ponies. With moments of cosmic folk guitar strumming, the mood is on chill mode but the unfamiliar sounds of the electro-acoustic and avant-garde elements offer plenty of fear factors that slowly wend and wind through a never-ending kaleidoscope effect of surreal psychedelic sensationalism. Tribal drumming and folky flute runs offer a grounding to Earthly experiences but the freeform flow that drifts aimlessly offers the feeling of drifting through the coldness of outer space.

While the rock aspects are practically non-existent, this Krautfolk experience is quite dynamic with a beautiful meandering display of pacifying psychedelia that rises to the ranks of early Ash Ra Tempel without the rock guitar heft. These dark brooding soundscapes provide the perfect soundtrack for an astral out of body experience while hovering around the warm glow of the Earth. There were several bonus tracks recorded before the band called it quits and they were rescued and added to the 2001 reissue. These tracks vary in style with some even resembling the 80s / 90s industrial scene in the vein of Skinny Puppy or Coil. While perhaps too reliant on the great Pink Floyd for inspiration, DOM did succeed in taking things even further out into the limitless lysergic in a way the PInksters never dreamed.