Tangerine Dream S/D

A lot of their early solo recs are gd too - I really like 'Aqua' by Edgar Froese, as well as most of the early Klaus Schulze recs. Schulze, btw, is one of the most underrated kit drummers of all time - the first 'Ash Ra Temple' alb is most urgent and key.

Search: Phaedra, Rubycon, Stratosfear, Alpha Centauri, Zeit, Cyclone (hey, it's different), either Ricochet or Encore (you don't need both- -they're practically the same damn album, except Encore's a double), Logos, soundtrack to Legend. Froese's solo albums Aqua and Stuntman are great as well.

Destroy: Electronic Meditation, Le Parc, Tyranny of Beauty and probably everything else they've released since 1985

Neither: Force Majeure, soundtracks to Sorceror and Flashpoint

For the unenlightened this was one of the *cough*, better, Knight Rider rip-offs.

I bought a few of the early albums in a Cope inspired binge about 5 years ago, I found them quite unremarkable really - except for the track 'Fly and Collision of Comas Sola' on 'Alpha Centauri' which I listened to a lot at the time. If I recall correctly it had this incredible drum-lead crescendo. I'll have to dig the albums out and give them another list

I can't say I'm not into it all, though - even the later stuff. I find it difficult to pick on TD, I don't know why "new age" (if that is indeed what they are) is such a dirty term. Sometimes I'm in the mood to listen to an album like Underwater Sunlight or Tyranny of Beauty, or Optical Race and Melrose for that matter.

The ones I like:

Zeit: recently heard this. Very much better than I thought it would be, not the semi-shambles of other early stuff, and also as beatifully alien as Stratosfear.

My favourites are these:
Phaedra - like some nebula with a new star in it.
Rubicon - like that star is fully formed, now getting rid of the gas and dust that came before.
Ricochet - Steady radiance. Someone said it was like Encore.. It's not. It's better by far. :)
Stratosfear - Doesn't stand too much repeated listening, but is still the strongest work, maybe. Some of those tunes seem like the kind of magic that ought to move big rocks.
Force Majeure - good, but they leave a good idea too soon instead of developing it. I like the Bach-like counterpoint stuff at the end, but not as much as the rock in the middle. Cloudburst Flight is the best. If I had to have just one single track by TD, it's that one. :)
Tangram - Intricate stuff, like origami, and small machines.
White Eagle - Mojave Plan is special to me, mainly for the arid opening and the bassline at the end that seems like a low flight along the course of a desert pipeline.
Cyclone - Which has one amazing track: Madrigal Meridian. If they'd not changed their course as a result of public displeasure with this, it might have meant TD being far more inventive now than they became. The weird baroque goings on with the lyricon and the clavichord and hurdy-gurdy sounds at the end are like some beatiful new tree that sadly got cut up. It should have been allowed to grow.
Poland - I love this. It seems to be one of the truly inspired and vivid things they've done live.
Exit - I've heard the Orbital, Back To Mine CD too. :) They chose the wrong track! Should have been 'Remote Viewing'. That is a far stronger piece.

I'd best stop there. :))
I came looking for a thread on the Great Never Mind The Bollocks Debate. :) Got a bit sidetracked. The Pistols are special too, so, back to business...

So you'd recommend Zeit, then? Anyone care to elaborate on the descriptions above, or should I search for the other thread?

I got an original pressing of this last year in Krakow, and it has been one of my constant companions since. Especially the track "Horizon." I like some of their other stuff, but this is what I consider their 'gem,' so to speak.

i like the cheesy 80s shit way more than i "should"

It was my first T. Dream album and remains my favorite. I've recently discovered that my city library has a copy of the bootleg box set! Worth checking out.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/02/tangerine_dream.html

i think "rubycon" / "stratosfear" are the best, though i'm still trying to really absorb "atem" and "force majeure"

Stratosfear is brilliant. as is Atem. And I like Electronic Meditation.

And Ash Ra Temple are great. Not overrated.

"electronic meditation" sounds to me more like those early road cone kraftwerk albums ("vol 1 + vol 2")

Hmmmmmmmmm, I thought I knew "Statosfear" but I'd never heard it before. I don't like it, it sounds like soundtrack music - but not in a good way. They just can't write decent melodies, the melodies they do write are so banal, and the synths are edging towards cheesiness. They still did some good music after this tho.

I prefer mid period Tangerine Dream. Those late 70s/early 80s albums. Lost of great arpeggio synths.

Stratosfear is great!

Wallpaper prog.

S: Edgar Froese's first few solo records. More mellotron, less rock. More pleasure.

I feel like an idiot for not having gotten around to this music. Which albums sound the most like TD trying to be Steve Reich as in the Risky Business soundtrack?

their soundtrack to thief makes every scene feel like it's the big final end scene

Which albums sound the most like TD trying to be Steve Reich as in the Risky Business soundtrack?

I don't know Hyperborea, but I haven't heard anything else from them that sounds like the Risky Business stuff.

"Sequent C'" is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard.

I love everything they did in the 70s, including the one with vocals.

Just picked up Zeit, Phaedra, Rubycon and Stratosfear for $5 each at a used shop, finally. I've been waiting for a good point to jump into the TD discography, and this seemed as good a chance as any, so here I go...

cant argue with those albums. You need Force Majeure though.

I'll keep my eye out!

Pity spotify doesnt work in america, theres loads of TD on it. Sadly the 1st 5 arent but the ones you mentioned are on it, most of the other 70s stuff is on it as well as the dodgy 80s stuff.

I've become a big fan of Green Desert over the last few years. It's prime era 70s TD that wasn't released until the mid 80s. And it has DRUMS.

"Dolphin Dance" from the Underwater Sunlight LP is a banger.

man "Lana" is so great

I'm with Tom on this one. It isn't EF's lack of technique that bugs me so much as his lack of style, which is what separates him in my mind from people like Neil Young. But I also think Gottsching wanks entirely too much, so maybe I just have a weird aversion to German electric guitarists who also happen to be pioneers of ambient music

Yes, it's not that he can't play, it's that he rarely plays anything interesting or certainly not interesting enough.

Froese's guitar is not a fount of melody, but I think of him less like, say, David Gilmour and more like the German Ron Asheton, where it's more important to fill a certain amount sonic space with "guitar sound" rather than choose your notes wisely.
On the other hand, I wouldn't say the records of this era are really full of guitar (except side 3 of Encore).

Except Ron Asheton's playing is a good thing in the Stooges. He is definitely trying for Dave Gilmour but falling well short.

Totally disagree about Gottsching by the way, he was an amazing guitarist.

I agree, but he's occasionally excessive, ie side 2 of E2-E4

in 1984 at the age of 16 i saw t'dream on their 'le parc' tour at st georges hall in bradford.
the band were like a bunch of mad scientists behind their racks of machines while surrounded by screens.
then at the climax of the sonic chaos,
edgar stepped away from the machines and let rip re the guitar while the screens all went into overdrive re fire.
basically while the machines and edgar went into overdrive it looked like they were all enveloped in fire.
it was thrilling to the extreme.
so yeah, he may not have have been good guitarist,
but damn,
he was a great showman.

Gottsching is incredible on the Walter Wegmuller album

having a tangerine dream february, specifically their "sessions" releases, which are the live archive...in the past ten or twelve years I've often looked into live albums from these guys and klaus schulze and the shows are routinely so good and enjoyable...it's not like listening to e.g. hard rock live albums, where the energy of the band is often the thing -- it's about hearing this music as music played by an ensemble, as a made thing in space...there's something very mystical to me about hearing this analog synth stuff being done in front of an audience, hearing the applause rise slowly when an 18-minute jam ebbs out to silence...space music/electronic music was radical enough from a recorded-music standpoint but hearing it done live adds, for me, to the daringness of it -- what if a concert was like this? what if it was trying to take you someplace different?

I've been curious about the Sessions - any particular recommendations? I have a bunch of the Klaus Schulze La Vie Electronique multi-disc sets, most of which are live archival recordings, and yeah, they rule, just an hour of drifting through space with these insanely romantic melodies swooshing past you.

I haven't had a miss yet on them -- tonight I'm listening to Volume IV (not the normal Volume IV) which is 2018 and it's terrific, the other night I listened to V which was even better, from the same year. they have one called Knights of Asheville from Moogfest 2011, I'm stoked for that. as far as I can tell the sessions series is mainly from that era, and most of the live stuff on their bandcamp is from 21c tangerine dream. which is fine by me, I like their 70s stuff too but this is all pretty new to me and it's so good

Thought the revive would be about the new Phaedra box set just announced:

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/tangerine-dream-phaedra-50th-anniversary/

Seems like all the extra material was previously released on the In Search of Hades box set, but I missed out on that at the time and am reluctant to pay discogs prices for it. So this is a welcome release.

seeing that announced was probably what got me digging around in the catalog. I think it's wonderful that their stuff is as available as it is; as a child in the 70s, this was some of the most out-there music that was accessible -- even the name was an indication that they were weirder, but if you happened across a cheap used copy of Rubycon (that'd be me), it was like a portal into a different reality. For a young devourer of science fiction paperbacks -- heady stuff!!

yeah Joan I get that feeling listening to their Poland live album, thinking about all these folks listening to this powerful synth music in 80s winterly Poland, like I think about the temperature and the atmosphere.

The pilots of purple twilight box is, like, perfect. I am an unabashed partisan of the froese franke schmoelling lineup
I’ll listen to some of the sessions things
I have knights of asheville but my favorite late td live thing is Supernormal which is I think one of only a couple of live albums with ulrich onboard but before Edgar’s death

xp - I recently came across a used CD copy of that Poland performance, it is so good!

yeah Joan I get that feeling listening to their Poland live album, thinking about all these folks listening to this powerful synth music in 80s winterly Poland, like I think about the temperature and the atmosphere.

totally. I used to have a live Klaus Schulze disc that was also I think in Poland? and it's the end of his tour and he's calling all his touring party up onstage to be introduced by name when the set's ending and it's deeply nerdy and incredibly beautiful, it's after a long set of very deep drone and groove and then it's like "omg you guys we had such a good time!"...a vibe

decided to revisit Raum to see if I still liked it, indeed it sounded even better than I remembered. its probably their first notable album in like 40 years. though I've heard Quantum Gate is quite good as well. I can see them doing a Gong thing and developing a catalogue with an all new lineup of folks who can keep things going for a while. I'd definitely see them live if given the chance. I mean is it really Tangerine Dream? idk, maybe not, but if it was a new band I'd think they were the modern TD, so there

I knew "Phaedra" charted in the UK - it reached #15 - but "Rubycon" was actually a Top 10 album. Basically all of their 70s Virgin albums (plus "Tangram") made the UK Top 40 at least. Which explains why their albums were so easily picked up secondhand. In contrast, they barely sold anything in Germany.

I've never really got into them beyond the odd track, starting delving about a month ago and spotify told me they were playing in my city so in the spirit of 'see the greats before they all die' i thought why not eh (i am fully aware this is a no original members incarnation). so this is a good revive to read!

was a time when you could buy things digitally and the TD albums were always cheap because they charged by the track and there were only 3 tracks...

as for this

> I've often looked into live albums from these guys and klaus schulze and the shows are routinely so good and enjoyable..

i think that's just a function of analogue synths - everything is effectively a one-off because you can't reliably repeat anything, so there's no real difference between a live recording and a studio recording (other than you can throw away the studio recordings that you don't like (or release them years later as a series of 30 triple cd sets, eh klaus?)

it's kinda irrelevant these days what with spotify and all but the first virgin box is a cheap and easy way in.

hoo boy Force Majeure... I don't think I listened to this before? this is SO dorky/bouncy/cheesy, wtf

t's about hearing this music as music played by an ensemble, as a made thing in space...there's something very mystical to me about hearing this analog synth stuff being done in front of an audience, hearing the applause rise slowly when an 18-minute jam ebbs out to silence...space music/electronic music was radical enough from a recorded-music standpoint but hearing it done live adds, for me, to the daringness of it -- what if a concert was like this? what if it was trying to take you someplace different?

https://www.villagevoice.com/i-saw-god-and-or-tangerine-dream/

ok the 2nd side of FM is more what I expected from 1979-era TD

that might be my favorite album of theirs, tbh, its just got so much cool stuff going on.

Can honestly say I have never heard anyone sing the words "bent cold sidewalk" with such zeal.

Was just thinking about this myself, imagining Froese's instructions: "Make sure you sing with great passion...also make sure your lyrics are complete nonsense"

This is a pretty fun thread on all the fakery and miming in TD “live”concerts:

https://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/31335-When-did-Tangerine-Start-Faking-in-Live-performances

recently picked this up and it's a doozy:

https://www.discogs.com/release/36396697-Tangerine-Dream-50-Years-Of-Phaedra-At-The-Barbican

I really dig this new lineup of Tangerine Dream. they do justice to the classic lineup, not only in their renditions of those tunes but also the way they can improvise incredible epics on the spot. all the "Sessions" tracks I've heard so far have been great.

also recently found a copy of Optical Race...I try to avoid that era of TD but the cool die-cut cover was too hard to pass up. it's a pretty cool album. sounds very 90s CD-ROM, like something OPN would sample. I don't really know anything from like....1981 to 2016, anyone rep for any of those albums?

I kind of bailed after around 1981 but I do remember Poland (The Warsaw Concert) was good, I think it's regarded as the best 80s record they did. The whole zombie band thing seems odd to me (see also Gong) but I could see a version of TD working, it's not like they were personality-led in the first place.

When I told my wife I was going to see a band with no original members she said "what? who are you going to see then?". I enjoyed it though (except for a couple of new pieces which had very lumbering "bum tish" drum parts). Maybe it's not that different from seeing a tribute band but yeah it's also some random people on stage twiddling knobs (occasional flute solos notwithstanding).

I think the electric violin is a good addition to the current lineup. And the 50 Years Of Phaedra album is good; I submitted a review to The Wire but it hasn't run yet.

I don't really know anything from like....1981 to 2016, anyone rep for any of those albums?

Yeah Optical Race is great, I've raved about it a few times on TD threads, but it's where I got off the bus. Exit (1981) is probably my favourite of the 80s albums. White Eagle and Hyperborea are both good too.

Can't get my head round a Froese-less TD though so I have no intention of listening to any of the post-Edgar stuff.

The three post-Froese albums I've heard - Raum, Recurring Dreams (a collection of reworked old pieces) and Quantum Gate/Quantum Key (which used elements he left behind) have been OK. Not embarrassing.

Raum is a good time!

Logos from 1982

That is an abridged version of the 1982 Dominion Theatre concert. You're better off listening to the whole concert which was released on the Pilots of Purple Twilight box set.

"bailed after around 1981"

The frustrating thing is that they spread themselves really thin in the 1980s. I remember reading that their equipment cost a fortune so they basically had to keep working non-stop, hence all the soundtracks. The practice of releasing a studio album, plus a soundtrack, plus a largely original live album basically used up their remaining pool of ideas. And doubly frustratingly some of their best work in that decade is only available on soundtrack albums that otherwise have regular songs from the film.

e.g. the music they did for Risky Business, particularly "Love on a Real Train", is surprisingly subtle and has aged incredibly well, but the soundtrack only has two tracks by the band. Thief is really good as well but has a mixture of previously-released material. And the score for The Keep is great but was never properly released. The title track is very similar to one of the tracks from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, and some of the rest of it comes from Logos. I have a soft spot for Legend because that's the version that was played on British television.

Post-1988 it's basically just noodling.

I think the other aspect is how the evolving technology made things much easier to crank things out. Most of the big hitters of 70s electronica got into an arms race of continual upgrades throughout the 80s, and you can see the appeal of MIDI, patch recall, digital sequencing (that you can save!) etc if your early experiences were wrestling with janky equipment that constantly drifted out of tune, may or may not hold a sync sequence depending on the weather, constantly broke down on tour etc. But there's some magic in the struggle, which is lost when things become more convenient.

(Side bar, but I think rave was a creative schism for the 70s/80s guys, most of whom got off the upgrade train at that point [e.g. TD's 90s work sounds v similar to their 80s work]. Some stuck with it; it's quite fun to hear Jean Michel Jarre in the 90s - with an expensive studio of boutique vintage gear - try and largely fail to capture the energy of a track made by two teenagers for 50p in a bedsit).

But there's some magic in the struggle, which is lost when things become more convenient.

yeah I agree, that's what I find so fascinating about those early Cluster records, they're full of little glitches and mini power outages, you can practically hear them fighting with the equipment in some points. 70s TD had that quality too but obviously it went away once they got "better" equipment. I think they work best when there's some entropy in their work. when some elements are slightly out of tune or at least sound a little gnarly. the new band does seem to understand this somewhat but I still think they're a tad too 'smooth' most of the time

I like the modern TD too but yes, their gear is too good - most modern analogue gear (esp modular stuff) has resolved many of the issues TD faced back in the day.

The most interesting take on this problem I've seen was Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygene on original instruments" tour c 2007 - a real high-wire act where the machines had to be tuned at the start of the process (and things glitched out considerably during the shows). Plus he needed to buy/hire four of every instrument to get round all the overdubbing on the record. A magnificent folly!

I've seen this theory before about it getting too easy for them but I'm not quite buying it yet. They start losing steam around the time a lot of great rock bands do.

Did some of their equipment really just die at live shows? It's kind of mortifying when that happens, I seen it with HTRK.

I think it's well established that most of what was heard at TD's live shows in the '70s was coming from a tape machine. There was no practicable way to recreate their studio techniques on stage.

decent haul at the record fair yesterday :)

https://i.imgur.com/E5JGFWZ.jpeg

And the score for The Keep is great but was never properly released

FYI, The Keep got reissued in 2021 for Record Store Day. I remember it being pretty good:

https://www.discogs.com/release/19519408-Tangerine-Dream-The-Keep

2018 performance of Stratosfear...this totally rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUl47O4MNzE

also now that I've properly absorbed it, that 50 Years of Phaedra release is incredible. as you may know there was a hilariously terrible 'update' of Phaedra in 2005, which featured a stupid looking grey space alien on the cover...this one kinda takes those ideas and does 'em right, like you're getting to hear what was actually in Edgar's head when he made it. but the Phaedra stuff is barely even a quarter of the album, it's 2 1/2 hours long with a great mix of new and old stuff, including a long improv part....feel like this release ought to be a bigger deal but I'm guessing the title "50 Years of Phaedra" is putting people off

they play like 15 minutes of GTA V music on it too. it rules

ooh that sounds v appealing
i haven't listened to TD in a long while and maybe it is time

I think I have a review of it in the issue of The Wire that comes out tomorrow. If it does get published, I'll post it here.

As promised:

Tangerine Dream
50 Years Of Phaedra: At The Barbican
Kscope 2xCD/DL/3xLP

It's usually a given that Legacy Act Performs Old Album In Full concerts are lame. But Tangerine Dream have carried on in a surprisingly non-embarrassing manner since founder Edgar Froese's death in 2015 - the current incarnation, featuring Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick, have been putting out strong new material (though it should be noted that both 2017's Quantum Gate and 2022's Raum featured archival performances by Froese). They've also toured extensively, playing new material and reworking old TD classics and improvising.

Quaeschning refers to the improvised portions of their concerts as sessions, and they've released eight volumes of those live recordings. Another such session, running to nearly 40 minutes, takes up the middle portion of this two and a half hour concert, and it's captivating, like wandering through someone else's dream.

The main focus of the concert heard here is a performance of Phaedra, their 50 year old fifth album and first for Virgin Records, and their commercial breakthrough. They don't simply play the album's four tracks in order and exactly as they appear on the original LP, though. Quaeschning and company update the music and make it their own. The title piece, for example, originally a nearly 18 minute slow drift through the universe, is only about six minutes long here, and tucked into the middle of the aforementioned improv session.

Meanwhile, "Sequent 'C'", originally a two minute flute coda, is more than twice that length this time round, and opens the show, while "Movements Of A Visionary" and "Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares" are close to their studio running time but still updated with modern synths and more precise timing. After an hour of greatest hits, "Phaedra" is played again, as a seven minute encore with surprisingly aggressive programmed rhythms.

Tangerine Dream are unwilling to surrender to nostalgia; they're still looking forward and journeying outward.