Ultima Thule

In February 1971, Steve Schroyder left the band and once again, Tangerine Dream were on the lookout for a new band member. They finally decided on Peter Baumann, born in 1953. He had made a name of himself as an amateur musician in Berlin with the band Burning Touch, in which he mostly played the more traditional music. Baumann was in every way a self-taught person and had taught himself to play the organ.

With Froese, Franke and Baumann the most stable constellation of Tangerine Dream was a fact -- at least according to the production of albums and putting out music. [...]

It was almost a paradox though that Tangerine Dream almost at the same time [they recorded Zeit, ed.] put out a single called Ultima Thule. With their use of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards it must have been the closest they have ever been to traditional rock. This says something about how the band was searching in different directions and rather limitless at the time.

Even if the single does not resemble their first albums it is quite important since it most certainly reflects rather well how bands like Tangerine Dream, and others with the same attitude to music, sounded when they performed their free kind of rock music in the late sixties and in the early seventies.