Tomorrow's Gift -

Tomorrow’s Gift was a German musical collective that released a self-titled, psych-rock double-album on +plus+ in 1970. Three years and a turn toward jazz-rock yielded the sophomoric Goodbye Future on Spiegelei/Aamok in 1973. The band subsequently evolved into the Release Music Orchestra.

Members: Ellen Meier (vocals, ?-1971), Carlo Karges (guitar, percussion, ?-1971), Manfred Rürup (organ), Wolfgang Trescher (flute, ?-1970), Bernd Kiefer (bass), Olaf Casalich (drums), Gerd Paetzke (drums, ?-1971), Zabba Lindner (drums, 1971-74), Uli Trepte (guitar, 1973), Norbert Jacobsen (guitar, 1973-74)

Background

Tomorrow’s Gift stemmed from a Hamburg school band formed in 1968 by bassist Bernd Kiefer. They grew to a six-piece with organist Manfred Rürup, guitarist Carlo Karges, drummer Olaf Casalich, flutist Wolfgang Trescher, and singer Ellen Meier.

In 1970, they landed six tracks on Love and Peace, a Somerset two-record set with cuts by Thrice Mice, the Novalis precursor Greenlight, and Sphinx Tush, an alias for the Live Experience Band with drummer Wolfgang ‘Zabba’ Lindner. Kiefer wrote their two original contributions: “Begin of a New Sound” and “At the Earth,” the latter divided into two parts around their cover of “Indian Rope Man,” the Richie Havens signature recently cultivated by Trinity.

As Tomorrow’s Gift prepared their first album, Casalich cleared for drummer Gerd Paetzke. Casalich played on the 1972 album Let It Out by Hamburg-based American soul-psych singer Frankie Dymon Jr. and doubled as a member of Ougenweide and Achim Reichel’s backing band. In 1978, he cut an album in Dennis, a jazz-rock combo with ex-Frumpy drummer Carsten Bohn.

Tomorrow’s Gift

Tomorrow’s Gift released their self-titled double album in 1970 on +plus+.

The album unfolds in bursts of frenetic interplay, structural pivots, and layered ensemble dynamics built around a shifting axis of flute, organ, guitar, and a propulsive rhythm section. Ellen Meier’s vocals surge and recede across the album’s two LPs, marked by clipped enunciation and sharp phrasing that frequently press against the instrumental backdrop.

“Breeds There a Man” and “King in a Nook” feature sudden breaks, tight organ runs, and angular clavinet figures that cut through passages of coordinated acceleration. “Prayin’ to Satan” rides dense Hammond clusters and abrupt tempo shifts that fragment and reassemble in short, unstable cycles. On extended pieces like “The First Seasons After the Destruction,” the band shifts from riff repetition to open-ended solo spaces, punctuated by sustained drum figures and dissonant interludes. “Sandy Concert” centers on a saxophone improvisation that locks against a looped figure, diverging briefly before circling back.

Throughout, Manfred Rürup’s keys alternate between ornate classical shapes and distorted drone waves, while Wolfgang Trescher’s flute adds a bright contrapuntal voice that threads through dense ensemble sections and lighter acoustic intervals. Despite lapses into unstructured improv, the album maintains a continuous sense of forward movement shaped by collective restraint and sudden surges.

A1. “Riddle in a Swamp” (8:02)
A2. “Prayin’ to Satan” (5:09)
A3. “One of the Narrow Minded Thoughts” (3:28)

B1. “Tenakel Gnag” (2:55)
B2. “The First Seasons After the Destruction” (13:02)

C1. “How You Want to Live” (7:32)
C2. “Gray Aurora” (1:40)
C3. “Ants” (2:51)
C4. “Breeds There a Man” (3:21)

D1. “King in a Nook” (4:27)
D2. “Sandy Concert” (8:08)
D3. “Enough to Write a Song About or Two” (2:00)
D4. “Second Song” (0:27)

Tomorrow’s Gift recorded the album with producer Jochen Petersen, who plays alto saxophone on “Sandy Concert.” He worked with the band in sequence with Corporal Gander’s Fire Dog Brigade, Wind, and his own group, Ikarus, who released their album in 1971 on +plus+.

Sessions occurred at Tonstudio Dierks in Stommeln with owner Dieter Dierks, who also engineered 1970/71 album by Bröselmaschine, Epsilon, Hairy Chapter, Haze, Krokodil, My Solid Ground, Nektar, Nine Days’ Wonder, Orange Peel, Rufus Zuphall, Tangerine Dream, and Witthüser & Westrupp.

Tomorrow’s Gift appeared in a gatefold with a grass-sit photo of five-sixths of the band, backed with a zoomed shot of Ellen. The inner-gate contains a yellow/orange-scale group pic from the same photoshoot.

By 1971, Tomorrow’s Gift lost four members. Karges joined the mid-Seventies Novalis lineup and later co-founded Nena. Ellen surfaced in Alto and Es. Wolfgang Trescher quit music and later converted to Buddhism. Bernd Keifer and Manfred Rürup continued with Wolfgang ‘Zabba’ Lindner. They transferred to Spiegelei (German for fried egg), the newly launched progressive subsidiary of Intercord.

Goodbye Future

Tomorrow’s Gift released their second album, Goodbye Future, in 1973 on Spiegelei.

Goodbye Future unfolds in six extended pieces that pivot between free-form textures, disorienting detours, and prolonged sections of trance-like repetition, all carried by a lean trio configuration of keys, bass, and drums. “Jazzi Jazzi” opens with splintered keyboard runs over a tumbling beat and sporadic vocal fragments, tilting the set into a warped celebratory tone before darker impulses take hold.

“Der Geier fliegt vorbei” stretches across eight minutes of swelling clavinet patterns, reverberant percussion, and rising bass distortion, pausing midway for a stark shift into suspended tension and shadowed chords. “Allerheiligen” pulses with slow, saturated bass tones and static synth textures, gradually opening into a web of brittle detail. “Wienersatz” compresses that atmosphere into two minutes of tape-looped dialogue, wandering bass interjections, and clipped laughter.

“Naturgemäß” pushes past the sixteen-minute mark with episodic pacing: the first half wanders through shapeless electronics and quiet cymbal chatter, then slowly coalesces into layered percussion and filtered keyboard motifs, building toward a dense, fuzz-toned climax. “Didden für Dunden” closes with a loose sprawl of fractured themes and ritualistic drumming that lingers in disarray. Throughout, Manfred Rürup’s electric keys move from dissonant abstraction to deliberate motif-work, underpinned by Bernd Kiefer’s throbbing bass and Wolfgang “Zabba” Lindner’s restless percussion, creating a continuous tension between inertia and eruption.

A1. “Jazzi Jazzi” (2:55)
A2. “Der Geier fliegt vorbei” (8:45)
A3. “Allerheiligen” (4:38)
A4. “Wienersatz” (2:18)

B1. “Naturgemäß” (16:50)
B2. “Didden für Dunden” (4:10)

Sessions occurred in spring 1972 at Star Music-Studio, Hamburg, with Connie Plank, who produced and engineered Goodbye Future in sequence with Let It Out and titles by Association P.C., Cluster, Gomorrha, Grobschnitt, Guru Guru, Ibliss, Jane, Kin Ping Meh, Kraftwerk, Lucifer’s Friend, Neu!, Night Sun, Scorpions, and Thirsty Moon.

Goodbye Future appeared in a plain white sleeve with die-cut reveals of Spiegelei’s fried egg label. The inner-sleeve features multiple monochrome shots of each member with “death stare” expressions.

Postlude

In 1973, Tomorrow’s Gift on-boarded guitarist Uli Trepte, the original bassist of Guru Guru. He cleared after six months for Let It Out saxophonist Norbert Jacobsen. This final lineup—Bernd Kiefer, Manfred Rürup, Zabba Lindner, Jacobsen—morphed into the Release Music Orchestra. Kiefer departed after their 1974 Brain release Life and later reconnected with Ellen Meier in Alto and Es. Rürup oversaw RMO’s jazz-rock progression through four further albums as their one constant member.

Zabba teamed with Carsten Bohn for the 1974 Metronome release Vollbedienung of Percussion. After his 1976 RMO exit, he too joined Es along with Kiefer, Meier, and their Alto bandmate George Kochbek, the former Virus keyboardist.

Discography: