Tonto’s Expanding Head Band :: “Zero Time” - Embryo Records
The British-American based duo of electronic experimentation and pioneering success within the genre, Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, were an extremely electrified duo of trailblazing masters among the sonically sophisticated movement in synthesizer music during the 1970s. Consisting of members Robert Margouleff and the late Malcom Cecil, the band traveled through the visceral layers of virtual volume and oscillating oblivion via the tonal vehicle of their creation known as “The Original New Timbral Orchestra”. Still remaining the very first of its kind, TONTO started off as just a Moog Modular in its early stages of development, but quickly began growing and metamorphosing into this futuristic Frankenstein consisting of Oberheims, ARPs, a number of keyboards, modules and various other electrified elements of digitized dynamics. While transcending the many latitude and longitude levels of contemporary music, the duo set their spaced-out sights on a new age and era of sound and quickly became legends-within the culture's incredible influence on textual development and wide-ranging sound exploration.
“The temporariness of it, the chaotic quality of it, the ability to create these most wonderful sounds that are there for a second and then go away, then you act on the thing in a very impulsive way, much as a jazz musician acts impulsively on his instrument. But the creation of the sound itself, the invention of the instrument itself comes very briefly to light out the chaos, and then it’s gone again.”
With the blessing of Robert Moog himself, the duo began their extraterrestrial exploration into the electronic landscape towards the end of the 1960s, while Moog began developing other different components for the cosmic oasis of science-fiction sound. With the atmospheric advancement of the ever-expanding expectations of the 1970s, Margouleff and Cecil quickly set out to conduct their dynamical debut “Zero Time”, while simultaneously conquering the cosmic characteristics of the iconic instruments' introduction into one of the most influential decades in music history. The album’s nerve center features six tracks of poetic prophecies all equipped with the soothing spellbound of just what makes the melodic museum of Tonto’s atmospheric ascetic, this fibrous folklore of majestic melody. “Zero Time” had many influences and inspirations right at the gate, with the title being the subject of a Richie Underberger essay, as well as the album’s painted cover and inner gatefold by artists Carol Hertzer and Issac Abrams, but another detail that lurks in the digital depths of the band’s debut is simply the nature of the music.
“How great it is at a time when technology and the science of music is at its highest point of evolution, to have the reintroduction of two of the most prominent forefathers in this music be heard again. It can be said of this work that it parallels with good wine. As it ages it only gets better with time. A toast to greatness... a toast to Zero Time... forever.”
Its pulsating patterns and spaced out scores truly reflect a time and place that remains both scared and mostly uninhabited within the spiritual fog of the band’s rich lore. Its alienated contents contain an absolutely fantastic collection of meditated melodies that, once released into the wilds, managed to reach the ethereal ears of the legendary Stevie Wonder as he began laying gravitational groundwork for his astonishing run in the early to mid 1970s. Calling on Margouleff and Cecil to join him on some of the most influential albums ever brought to light, such as “Music of My Mind”, “Talking Book”, “Innervisions” and “Fulfillingness' First Finale”, the trio single-handedly bridged the commute between psychedelia, R&B, gospel and blues in a way that echos through the mountains of melody.
