1970: Three eccentric albums

Voted Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation, my favourite of theirs. 

I'm not sure I would consider these "eccentric" ... I kinda look at them differently.

The Third Ear Band, to my way of thinking (not that it is "right"), was an attempt, at the time to add some legitimacy to an old style that had been created and romanticized about a lot of the music and its ways 500 years ago ... and in that sense, it succeeded magnificently ... except that it was sprung on the wrong audience, and people thought it was sheepdip! No kidding here, and this was the saddest thing I ever saw ... you watched R&J with some music that was out of this world, and then you saw West End use bands like Gryphon (and other groupings less known), but no one could figure out how TTEB did their thing ... which to my mind at the time, and today, was a sort of PETER BROOK experiment in music, that today is much more appreciated (... turn water into wine and wine into water ... ) mainly because it is more melodic than the stuff they created originally ... and it was one of the reasons why Roman Polanski used their music for his MACBETH film ... (not discussing its use!).

TD's first album, for me, was INTENTIONAL, and I think it was a sort of ... just throw everything in and let's see what we got. And this is something that many artists, painters and writers specially, do a lot ... before they "find" the bits and pieces that helped create the thread that ends up sorting out the piece they are hoping to create. Ex: I write a lot of bits and pieces ... only to find that 5 years later that one piece over there matches up with this piece I happen to bump into 2 years ago ... and they blend well together to create a new chapter of a novel, or a new poem ... it's just how it works ... it could be a bit of "memory", or a "dream", and where it comes from does not matter ... only the result seems to matter ... even though I am not sure that the "result" is as important as the learning how to work with the details that you get ... most of which end up lost and gone.

TD, unlike most other bands that can only look at "rock'n'roll" or some other similar repugnant "name" for the style of music, was not concerned with what the music was ... and EF has stated that and discusses it on his book. This is important, however, it is something that we do not understand, or can discuss well here at all ... because it makes it look like our "creative instinct" is INVISIBLE and not real ... and this is the part that is the "fear" in most folks trying creative endeavors, and Dali's comments and presence, is nothing but a comment that ... it doesn't matter if it is invisible or not ... just get it done! And TD did, regardless!

AD2's Yeti, is probably the one rock album that is the best in my mind, and it is a treasured dream for me. Coming out of an album that to me obviously makes fun of the commune's way with women, and partying, all of a sudden is an album that celebrates the "getting stoned" and "tripping" side of things, and I imagine that this was also a take on the commune, since in there, you could not just trip off in completion since someone would come on, and have sex or what not, and interrupt the trip ... YETI, to me, is more than just a trip ... I think it was written to show that there was a lot possible to be done with music, from classical music moments and inspirations, to the visual elements that the title track has, something which has AN IMMENSE history, that goes back to the early 1900's in GERMAN OPERA, when its sets were so simple, but were just lit with SHAFTS OF LIGHT that created some amazing images and visuals, the closest ideal of which has been Werner Herzog in some of his films ... the music is usually visualized in a lot of color and beauty ... 

Thus, AD2's album for me, is a "deepening" of the inner study of the drugs ... something that The Beatles, and everyone else quit on, when the religious fervor set in, and even their quasi/fake Eastern sensibilities did not liberate them from that reality. As an "inner study", this album is a lot less eccentric, than it is "informative" and something that you can "study" and "appreciate", specially when you can see the combination of the various elements within it. AND, this does not even include, a lot of the use and application of a lot of Eastern music within the album from a "raga" to a mere piece on being stoned and playing music!

"Eccentric" to me, as the term is applied to theater/film, would be something like Ron Geesin in his really early albums, that end up being weird and just far off bits and pieces, that become fun to listen to at parties when you are stoned ... ("... when I'm busy composing ... ") so you have something else out of the blue to laugh at!

The three pieces mentioned, FOR ME, are too well thought out and "directed" in order to be eccentric ... in my book, but your topic is a nice one and a fun one to discuss!