Tomorrow's Gift - Tomorrow's Gift (1970 germany, Fantastic hard/progressive rock - 2015 reissue) Wave

Tomorrow’s Gift started out in the late 60’s as more of a conventionally-styled heavy progressive band with a late psychedelic hangover, though by no means ordinary or forgettable. Driven by heavy, churning organ and guitar riffage and ornamented by iconic flute and the masculine vocals of fiery-haired heart-throb Ellen Meyer, Tomorrow’s Gift Mk. 1 bore some general comparison to Frumpy, but in my opinion were better by and large, certainly less patchy and more likely to appeal to today’s underground heads.

Tomorrow’s Gift had darker overtones (as you’d expect from a band who had song called things like “Prayin’ To Satan” and “The First Seasons After The Destruction”), though not without some non-soppy love and light vibes to counteract the despair with some inspired hope, their riffs leaning more to a Teutonic Purple/Heep-like proto-metal than hippy blues rock.

They could also jam up a weird storm, as documented by the 20-minute live jams found on the various artists live albums ‘Pop& Blues Festival ‘70’ and ‘Love and Peace’, where they twist “Season of the Witch” (as “Sound of Which”) and “Indian Rope Man” (interspersed with their own “At the Earth”) respectively far beyond their original structures into demented heavy psychedelic jams.

Originally issued in 1970, the first album by German band Tomorrow's Gift is a true Krautrock classic. It contains long, powerful tracks with plenty of guitar, organ, flute and drum solos. And of course there are Ellen Meyer's strong vocals which bring to mind Frumpy's Inga Rumpf, or Janis Joplin. Indeed, Tomorrow's Gift and Frumpy had a lot in common musically, and both are highly appreciated by genre lovers.

By 1972, Tomorrow’s Gift had been reduced to only keyboardist Manne Rürup and bassist Bernd Kiefer from the original line-up that recorded the debut, and took on board drummer extraordinaire Zabba Lindner from crazed underground rockers Sphinx Tush to create a totally different instrumental group that would tackle music that was far more original, unconventional and psychedelic, and with more insane spontaneity and light-hearted nuttery. In fact you might as well regard Tomorrow’s Gift Mk. 2 as a totally different band, because there is no resemblance between the two whatsoever.

01. Riddle in a swamp (8:02) 
02. Prayin' to Satan (5:09) 
03. One of the narrow minded thoughts (3:28) 
04. Tenakel gnag (2:55) 
05. The first seasons after the destruction (13:02) 
06. How you want to live (7:32) 
07. Grey aurora (1:40) 
08. Ants (2:51) 
09. Breeds there a man (3:21) 
10. King in a nook (4:21) 
11. Sandy concert (8:08) 
12. Enough to write a song about or two (2:00) 
13. Second song (0:27)

14. Begin Of A New Sound (from "Love And Peace" compilation LP, 1970)

*Carlo Karges - Guitars, Percussion
*Bernd Kiefer - Bass
*Ellen Meyer - Lead Vocals
*Gerd Paetzke - Drums
*Manfred Rürup - Keyboards
*Wolfgang Trescher - Flute
Guest Musician
*Jochen Petersen - Alto Saxophone (11)

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