Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation
Castle Communications  (1970)
Krautrock

Not In Collection

7*
CD  36:37
5 tracks
   01   Genesis             05:56
   02   Journey Through A Burning Brain             12:27
   03   Cold Smoke             10:49
   04   Ashes To Ashes             03:59
   05   Resurrection             03:26
Personal Details
Details
Country Germany
Spars DDD
Sound Stereo
Notes
Tangerine Dream: Electronic Meditation
Castle Communications (ESM CD 345)
Germany 1970

Edgar Froese, guitars, organ, piano;
Klaus Schulze, drums, percussion, metal sticks;
Conrad Schnitzler, cello, violin, typewriter

Joe McGlinchey:
The very first Tangerine Dream album, with what is practically a holy trinity of Krautrock for a line-up. Froese, of course, for all intents and purposes is Tangerine Dream, leading the band through thick and thin, even now a good 30 years down the road. Schulze would go on to form Ash Ra Tempel, eventually taking up residence behind the synthesizers and starting a high profile solo career. Schnitzler went on to form the first edition of Cluster (called 'Kluster'), which he then promptly abandoned for a solo career, his current status being that of a cult Krautrock icon. Despite the amazing line-up though, this album, which is basically a rehearsal jam recorded to Revox in October 1969, just meanders to me. Each track exudes an amorphous, primitive, and chilly atmosphere, but has no particular destination in mind. I will say that for those of you out there who really love Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" (the title track) or Ummagumma, you definitely need this one in your collection as well.






Tangerine Dream


Discography
Electronic Meditation (1970)
Alpha Centauri (1971)
Zeit (1972)
Atem (1973)
Phaedra (1974)
Rubycon (1975)
Ricochet (Live 1975)
Stratosfear (1976)
Encore (Live 1977)
Cyclone (1978)
Force Majeure (1979)
Tangram (1980)
Thief (1981)
Exit (1981)
White Eagle (1982)
Logos (Live 1983)
Hyberborea (1983)
Poland (Live 1984)
Warsaw in the Sun (1984)
Flashpoint (1984)
Le Parc (1985)
Legend (1985)
Pergamon (Live 1986)
Heartbreakers (1986)
Desert Dream (1986)
Underwater Sunlight (1986)
Green Desert (Archival, 1986)
Tyger (1987)
Canyon Dreams (1987)
Live Miles (1988)
Optical Race (1988)
Lily on the Beach (1989)
Destination Berlin (1989)
Melrose (1990)
Rockoon (1992)
Dreaming on Danforth Avenue (Live 1993)
220 Volt Live (1993)
Turn of the Tides (1994)
Tyranny of Beauty (1995)
Goblins Club (1996)
Ambient Monkeys (1998)
Mars Polaris (1999)
Sohoman (Live 1999)
Architecture in Motion (1999)
Soundmill Navigator (Recorded 1976, Released 2000)
Seven Letters from Tibet (2000)

Soundtracks
Sorcerer (1977)
Firestarter (1984)
Risky Buisness (1984)
Shy People (1987)
Deadly Care (1987)
Miracle Mile (1989)
Wavelength (1990)
Near Dark (1990)
L'Affaire Walraff (1991)
The Park is Mine (1992)
Rumplestiltskin (1993)
Catch Me if You Can (1994)
Zoning (1996)
Oasis (1997)
Transsiberia (1998)
Great Wall of China (2000)


County Of Origin: Germany
Established: 1969
Styles: Krautrock, Electronic, Ambient

Biography

Tangerine Dream were a German synthesizer trio that has quickly become one of my favorite bands. The group is one of those bands that might be slow to grow on you, but once they get under your skin you find yourself listening to nothing but for a week or more at a time. Tangerine Dream was one of the core Kraut Rock groups at their inception. Their earlier albums were classic ambient space music in the German tradition of the 70s. Tangerine Dream and other groups like Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Duul II, Faust, Can and Neu! separated themselves from the critical disdain of the more traditional symphonic rock coming out of England at the time. These bands had no such "pretensions" of trying to combine classical music and rock, but in fact, their ambitions were far greater. They wanted to completely deconstruct the way the world approached and heard music, and then build it back up again.

Tangerine Dream's first album, Electronic Meditation, featured main man Edgar Froese along with one Konrad Schlitzner and drummer Klaus Shulze, who would go on to the seminal Ash Ra Tempel as well as an illustrious solo career. The album is an embryonic take on what the band were about to become, and has some brilliant moments along with some meandering. TD's classic period begins with the addition of Chris Franke on the second album, the monstrous Alpha Centauri, a glorious textural ambient album with just the right amount of coherent melody in their spaced out soundscapes, and continues with Zeit and Atem. Zeit saw the crystallization of the group's classic lineup of Peter Baumann, Chris Franke and Edgar Froese. That album, in particular, stretched the ideas of the early incarnation to the limit, creating an enormous double album of monstrous, slow moving sound, eliciting fairly extreme reactions from listeners one way or another. The band's most universally well regarded albums are their next two, Phaedra and Rubycon, on which the band reinvented their sound into a more refined, cohesive blend of melodic synth textures and cold pulsing rhythms. The rest of their catalog is somewhat spotty, but all the albums I have from the late 70s are quite good, in the basic style of Phaedra and Rubycon, but with their own eccentricities. After 1980 or so, the band supposedly ceased to become of any real interest to a progressive rock fan as the lineup splintered and Froese gradually submerged the group into dance, new Age and pop territories, though I personally haven't ventured past 1979's Force Majeure quite yet. - Greg Northrup [2000]
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Electronic Meditation (1970)

An interesting album that started the whole Tangerine Dream phenomenon. The album is more of a historical reference due to the inclusion of the legendary Klaus Schulze. Electronic Meditation is for the most part is a extremely naive yet certainly ambitious and experimental take on early Kraut Rock. I quite like it, and it's easy to see the genius just bubbling below the surface of this noisy and chaotic album. I've heard comments along the lines "any garage band could have made this album", which should provide some warning to the potential listener of the initial impression this album tends to give.

Stately, floating organ, wispy flutes and percussive rhythms go along with the noisy guitar freak-outs, and the song structures often lapse into realms of total meandering unimpressiveness. However, the brilliant moments that are here, as on "Journey Through a Burning Brain" and "Cold Smoke" illustrate a band with the right idea, just in need of a little direction. Froese would get it right the next time around with Alpha Centauri. Not the place to start with Tangerine Dream, as it's neither particularly representative or among the band's great works, and even then avowed TD fans are still split over its merits. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Alpha Centauri (1971)

For me, this is where it's at as far as early Tangerine Dream goes. Alpha Centauri is without a doubt a extraordinary album of mind-bending cosmic excurisions, truly evocative and moving, while treading forward with an unparalled experimental edge. The music is cinematic and awe-inspiring, moving forward slowly, with waves of flute and synthesizer floating on top of beds of organ-drenched atmospheres. This is outer space music for sure, and there is certainly nothing here vaguely resembling conventional song structures. Even solid rhythmic ideas are a rare commodity. For the most part, these are just sounds, embellished with half-forgotten semblances of melody, yet managing to hold the listener in their grasp throughout.

"Sunrise in the Third System" is truly evocative, as the powerful organ rings in the opening of the album. "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola" could be my favorite track, gradually building up to a percussive climax, while the closing title epic furthers the themese already introduced, though by this point the album gets a tad repetitive, and one may need to take a break from concentrated listening. Overall, Alpha Centauri is a tour-de-force of utterly beautiful cosmic music, experimental and engaging without falling into the drawn-out traps and over ambitiousness that the next album, Zeit, would struggle with. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Zeit (1971)

Zeit is perhaps the ultimate expression of outer-space ambiance, on the other hand it could also be considered a dreadful bore. It all depends on one's state of mind. The album features the crystallization of TD's core lineup of Baumann, Froese and Franke and the creation of what many see as Tangerine Dream's magnum opus. Zeit is a double album of eerie, ambient soundscapes, truly evoking the far reaches of space. Initial listens might give the impression that absolutely nothing is going on, just cellos or synthesizers droning endlessly. Further listening should reveal that there is indeed something going on, it's just happening veeerrryy sloooooooowwwlyy. This album takes more patience than I possess to sit through in it's entirety, and even any one of the songs is a pretty big demand on my undivided attention. Still, this album is meant as late-night zone out music, and it took some effort to separate this, and TD's other albums, from the way I usually listen to music.

It's hard to say whether any songs stand out over any others, at this point they all sound fairly similar, and even though I've listened to Zeit quite a bit, I'm still not completely familiar with all of its ins and outs. I think both Alpha Centauri and Atem are more condensed and listenable versions of some of the basic ideas, and better starting points for getting into early Tangerine Dream. If you found those boring, don't even touch Zeit. If you liked 'em, Zeit could be considered the pinnacle of that style. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Phaedra (1974)

Phaedra marks the beginning of Tangerine Dream's most celebrated phase of existence. This album and its companion piece, the awesome Rubycon, were the recordings that really pushed electronic music forward into a viable commercial entity, scoring huge hits while still retaining an uncompromising experimental edge. The new direction was marked by incorporating a more cohesive and satisfying rhythmic edge via spellbinding keyboard sequences that gurgle beneath the layers of sound. More distinctive melodic textures also appear throughout, and Tangerine Dream makes full use of all kinds of synthesizer technology to explore truly mystic and cosmic soundscapes. Phaedra is much more engaging and immediately enjoyable than any of it's predecessors.

The title-track is by far the most enjoyable, perhaps the greatest single Tangerine Dream piece. This song just rules, and has all the hallmarks of the new direction put to perfect use. The rest of the album lets down a bit from it's opening masterpiece, but isn't bad. "Mysterious Semblance..." is a solo Froese piece that makes excellent use of haunting mellotron, while "Sequent C" is a short, albeit brilliant closer. This album or Rubycon are probably the best place to start exploring Tangerine Dream's fascinating music, much more accessible to a traditional prog fan than their earlier, even more experimental explorations on albums like Zeit and Alpha Centauri. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Rubycon (1975)

Rubycon is without a doubt my favorite Tangerine Dream album, and probably one of the finest examples of electronic and keyboard textures being put to emotional use to date. The album continues in the same vein as Phaedra but in my opinion is just a tad more consistent throughout. I felt that TD's exploration of rhythmic sequencing was brilliant on that album, and they're utilized even more throughout Rubycon. This is utterly intense ambient space music that drifts from dreamy and relaxing into passages of complete nightmare. The more cohesive and engaging melodic themes make Rubycon by far the most effective Tangerine Dream album.

The album is composed of two long tracks, both of which are utterly fascinating from start to finish. "Part One" starts off with enchanting soundscapes tthat build into trance-like sequencer rhythms at the seven minute mark that build with stunning intensity for the rest of the track. Foreboding melodic keyboard themes are layered upon each other, along with haunting mellotron passages. "Part Two" opens in much the same free form way as the first, with menacing choir effects atop a beatless sound collage before the piece finally releases into an intense, amorphous sequencer rhythm that changes dynamically throughout the track, occaisonally falling out completely beneath waves of synthesizer and mellotron. This is a great place to start exploring Tangerine Dream, an incredible display of the potential power of electronic music. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Ricochet (1975)

Today was a Ricochet kind of day. A fall afternoon in New York City, with a frozen-tinged air blowing fallen, dried leaves across cement and cold concrete. Crowds of people lurching about their daily activities, bundled up, fighting back the penetrating autumn air. All sound is muted; the only aural companion to this walk are the subtle, majestic electronic soundscapes of atmosphere-peddlers Tangerine Dream, pouring through my headphones. The sun fades, outlining dark clouds sitting in contrast to the crystal, icy blue sky. Subways choke with people, buses screech, passing cars reconfigure the fallen leaves, the incoherent babble of a homeless man is completely obscured by towering synthesizer themes and mind-bending sequencer rhythms. It's one of those surreal moments that sits independent of time and without context, rendering one nothing more than an observer of the triviality and hopelessness of the human condition. It's the type of thing that tends to happen when you listen to too much Tangerine Dream.

Ricochet is in many ways one of the group's most profoundly satisfying albums. Sitting within the band's most revered middle period, the album retains a stylistic similarity with masterpieces like Phaedra and Rubycon. Although a live album, Ricochet isn't merely a rehash of previously recorded pieces. Marking the beginning of a tradition in Tangerine Dream live recordings, the album is in essence a full composition in its own right. The group takes their new compositions and occasionally throws in a theme or rhythm from one of the previous albums, and often offers slight improvisations over the top of them. The result is supremely effective. As always based around the synthesizer work of the band's core trio, though some guitar (especially in the cosmic main theme of Part One) and sparse percussive elements are found as well. Gorgeous, cold and beautiful, the album is a clearly essential purchase for any devotee of Tangerine Dream's classic 70s work. - Greg Northrup [November 2001]
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Stratosfear (1976)

The follow-up to the classic Rubycon sees the band shift their direction slightly once again, apparently not wanting to create yet another album in the vein of Phaedra and Rubycon. Stratosfear is a slight step down from those albums, and sees the band streamline their sound further, exhibiting less reliance on free-form weightlessness and a more conventionally melodic side. More organic instruments like guitar, piano and flute are added, but don't make especially noticeable entrances. Some have commented that the album was sort of the beginning of the end for TD, foreshadowing their descent into electro-pop mediocrity. I still think this album is pretty awesome though, and despite not being as grim or intense as Rubycon, still a extraordinary display of progressive electronics.

The title track is amazing, and definitely the high point of the album. Unbelievable, dramatic melodies atop a stunning energetic electronic backdrop. "3 AM at the Border..." exhibits a mellower side of the group, making dramatic use of mellotron. Overall, the album is Tangerine Dream's most accessible to this point, very easy to get into and to follow, and full of compelling melodies. Still, it lacks the otherwordly menace of previous albums, though devotees of Phaedra and Rubycon would be well-advised to pick this one up as well. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]
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Force Majeure (1979)

Another extremely solid album from Tangerine Dream, though it's definitely the most streamlined and traditionally "rock" album I own by them. By this point in the band's career, Peter Baumann had left, so the group was down to the duo of Franke and Froese, in addition to studio drummer Klaus Krieger. The addition of drums and guitar give Force Majeure an even more traditional and streamlined approach than previous albums like Stratosfear.

While still being all instrumental, the group here sounds like a smoothed-out mixture of Pink Floyd and maybe Kraftwerk. Still, while not being the most original album, I still enjoy it quite a bit, and find myself playing it often. Fans of symphonic progressive rock will definitely find this an easy album to get into, but it's honestly not very representative of the classic Tangerine Dream sound. This album is often considered the last gasp of a brilliant group whose level of quality would significantly plummet in the coming decade, though to be fair, I haven't ventured into their 80s material yet myself. Highly enjoyable for what it is, but doesn't quite live up to TD's groundbreaking former works. - Greg Northrup [March 2001]





Tangerine Dream - "Electronic Meditation" (1970)

The kings of 70's progressive electronics. In the 70's, Tangerine Dream made some of my all time favourite music. But their debut- album was not very representative for the band. The noisy, experimental and freaked out kraut-rock you'll find on this album has not much in common with the later albums, neither in quality or style. The quiet and floating organ parts on "Journey Through a Burning Brain" is quite nice, and "Genesis" is representative for the most experimental moments of early TD. But large parts of the album is just a lot of feedback drenched guitar- noise from the leader Edgar Froese and some noisy drum-bashing by Klaus Schulze. And these parts gives me absolutely nothing! But in the light of the albums that still were to come, I think it's forgivable.




Tangerine Dream - "Alpha Centauri" (1971)

Schulze had left to form Ashra Tempel and was replaced by Chris Franke. "Alpha Centauri" is an album that much more showed what TD really was about than the debut- album. Long, floating, experimental, quiet, atmospheric tracks which takes the listener on a journey beyond. That's how I personally always has viewed TD's music. Structurally, the album was representative for several of the later albums with one 20-minute title-track, while the other side consisted of 2- 3 "shorter" tracks. The music on the album is pretty much based around space-themes, and I guess that titles like "Sunrise In the Third System" and "Flight and Collision of Comas Sola" gives you a clue. Very relaxing instrumental music played mostly on organ and some electronics. The title-track features also some flute, and later in their career, mellotron-flute became a important part of their classic sound. As I said, a much better and more representative album than the debut.




Tangerine Dream - "Zeit" (1972)

When Peter Baumann joined the group, the ultimately best TD line- up consisting of Froese, Franke and Baumann became reality. Together, this three men made some of the most wonderful, dreamy and mystic music I'm aware of. I have probably listened to the best TD albums at least a thousand times. The classic line- up's first album was a double- one, and musically still quite much in the same territory as "Alpha Centauri", but more experimental. Each of the album's four sides consisted of a 20-minute piece, and just as "Alpha...", the album had some kind of a space-concept to it. My favourite track is probably "Birth of Liquid Plejades". It starts with some very sinister cellos and after a while it turns into some improvisations on a moog before the whole track ends with some very nice, floating and warm organ. "Nebulous Dawn" is probably the most experimental TD track ever. Definitively not for everyone! Both the title-track and "Origin of Supernatural Probabilities" are atmospheric and spacey journeys that everyone into early 70's electronics will enjoy. I've heard that Froese's son Jerome hates this album, and for me, that's reason good enough to like it! (For those who doesn't know: both Edgar and Jerome Froese have the last ten years done absolutely everything they can to destroy TD's reputation by making worthless shit under the name Tangerine Dream. DO NOT judge TD from the albums they've made in the 80's and 90's!)




Tangerine Dream - "Atem" (1973)

Wonderful! TD were now really on the way to some great stuff! "Atem" is with no doubt the best of TD's Ohr albums, and this one also brought them some attention outside Germany too. The legendary disc-jockey John Peel loved the album, and he played it almost all the time in his radio- show. The album starts with the 20-minute title-track. It opens with some very powerful mellotron and thundering timpani. VERY striking! After about 5 minutes, the whole track slows down to a dreamy, quiet and wonderfully mystic atmosphere which I wish could last forever. I just can't help it, but I LOVE this stuff. "Fauni-Gena" is played by mellotron with some bird-sounds in the background. What an atmosphere! No one has ever used the mellotron in a more perfect way than Froese / TD, if you ask me. The last track on the album, "Wahn", features some voice- experiments before the track ends in a very powerful timpani / mellotron part. A classic of 70's progressive electronics, but the very best albums were still to come!!!




Tangerine Dream - "Phaedra" (1974)

With the release of their first Virgin album, TD found their ultimate and classic sound. Just as the previous album, the music was still based in improvisations on mellotron, organ and a lot of electronics, but now it was built around some very distinctive electronic rhythms which made the music even deeper and more mystic! The 17-minute title- track is TD at their very, very, VERY best. The first 10 minutes features all the things I mentioned. The last 7 minutes has some of the most sinister, mystical and wonderful atmosphere I've ever heard. Tons of mellotron-choir, strings, flutes and haunting electronic sounds. NO ONE can create atmospheres better than TD did at their best. The music gives you a feeling of floating around in mystical and far away places in a kind of a "life after death" mood. Dreamy and quite nature-romantic. And there's LOT of mysticism in the music. A few seconds after the track has ended, you can hear some children playing far away. What does it mean? Did you just wake up from a dream or something like that. There's always a lot of things in the music that makes you wonder and think. This is very hard for me to explain. You just got to hear the music yourself. "Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares" is a very symphonic and sinister mellotron- track, and of course EXCELLENT! "Movements of a Visionary" has some excellent and floating organ upon the electronic-rhythm which now was a important part of the classic TD sound. The masterpiece ends with a short but wonderful track called "Sequent C'". It just consists of some flute, but WHAT an atmosphere! It's quite hard to believe today, but this album made it to the British Top Ten! You will probably not believe it when you listen to the music. Get this album, and you'll never be the same!




Tangerine Dream - "Rubycon" (1975)

A fantastic follow- up, and another proof of the TD's genius at this stage in their career. The album consisted of just one continuos piece that included everything that made TD so great. The quiet parts sounds just so awesome beautiful and mystic. And the electronic rhythms never sounded better than on this album. The subject of this album seemed to be the ocean. At least, that's what I think when I listen to the album. The listener gets dragged down from the surface to the darkest and most mysterious deeps, all in the usual dreamy TD style. The arrangements are pure perfection. Lots of mellotron and electronics the way they should sound. NO plastic shit in here! If you ask me, then the classic TD sound is probably the best sound made by anyone! Just as "Phaedra", this is a classic masterpiece that is essential in any thinking person's collection.
View the label.




Tangerine Dream - "Ricochet" (1975)

It was still 1975, but TD released another classic! Just as "Rubycon", this album consisted of just one 40- minute long piece, but this one was recorded live. Musically it was TD the way we were used to now, both in quality and style. But the piece included in fact some parts with themes too. It opens with some sinister electronics and percussion before Froese plays a theme with his very distinctive electric guitar sound. Now the band also made a lot of use of mellotron-horns which became a part of the TD sound in the second half of the 70's. The second side opens very peaceful and quiet with some piano and mellotron-flute. Pure beauty, and as I probably has said a thousand times on this page, mellotron-flute is simply the most beautiful sound in the universe! The rhythmic part is very pleasant and relaxing with the usual inspired improvisations on mellotron and electronics. Personally I have always meant that "Phaedra", "Rubycon" and "Ricochet" are the most essential albums TD have made, and you should get all of them.




Tangerine Dream - "Stratosfear" (1976)

The sound was still TD, but the music had straightened quite a lot out on this album. And the album's longest track was "just" 11 minutes long. The music is lighter and much more based in themes than the previous albums. Some of the depth and mysticism were gone, but this is of course not a bad album. The mellotron was still quite visible on excellent tracks like "The Big Sleep in Search of Hades" and "3am at the Border of the Marsh from Okefenokee". The title-track and "Invisible Limits" were much slicker than anything else TD had done until then, but both are good tracks. And the whole album lives up to its title. It gives you a feeling of floating high up in a clear blue sky. You can check this one out AFTER you have bought the three previous albums.
View the pic inside the fold-out cover.




Tangerine Dream - "Sorcerer" (1977)

The soundtrack for the movie of the same name. The director of the movie, William Friedkin, was a big fan of the group, so he asked them to make a soundtrack before he even had started to work on the movie! If you ask me, the music on the album doesn't fit into the movie at all. The music of TD is best when you just listen to it as nothing else than TD-music! The music is simply too good to be connected to something else than TD themselves. Don't let the fact that the album consists of 12 tracks scare you. The sound of the album is classic TD the way I love. LOTS of mellotron and excellent electronic rhythm themes. Most of the tracks are excellent, and you should probably take this album as an ordinary TD album, and not a soundtrack. Just listen to the music, and don't care about the movie.




Tangerine Dream - "Encore" (1977)

Excellent double live- album recorded during TD's US tour in 1977. The album consisted of four tracks which featured both new and old themes. The tracks sometimes went into themes from "Ricochet", "Statosfear" and "Sorcerer", but most of the material were written specially for the concerts. My favourite track is "Desert Dream". An orgy of the typical TD- sounding mellotron and electronics. Personally I have always meant that "Coldwater Canyon" seems to drag a little bit, but both "Cherokee Lane" and "Monolight" are excellent tracks in the classic TD style. But the album was probably the last where TD sounded like...TD! After this it became clear that TD musically had seen their best years.
View the pic from the back-cover.




Tangerine Dream - "Cyclone" (1978)

Peter Baumann had left the group, and Froese and Franke were obviously obsessed with doing something different from the previous albums. They took in Steve Joliffe on vocals and Klaus Krieger on drums. The result were an album that sounded like a meeting between the classic TD- sound and a progressive rock band from the late 70's. Most TD fans seems to hate the album, but I like it. And it's in fact better than absolutely everything TD have done in most of the 80's and all of the 90's! The album opens with "Bent Cold Sidewalk". The vocal- parts are almost Pink Floyd-ish, but the best part is of course the instrumental flute part in the middle. A quite good track. The other vocal track, "Rising Runner Missed by Endless Sender", is on the other hand just crap and probably the worst track TD ever recorded in the 70's. What really makes the album worth owning is the 20-minute "Madrigal Meridian". A superb instrumental track which proved that TD is meant to be instrumental! If you ask me, this is a classic TD track. An underrated album, but it's of course not one of TD's best either.




Tangerine Dream - "Force Majeure" (1979)

Steve Joliffe had left, and TD returned to the instrumental style. Unfortunately, the mellotron was gone and TD were obviously trying to sound more modern and up to date. Next to "Cyclone", this album is probably the closest TD have come to traditional symphonic progressive rock. It's of course not bad, but the depth, mysticism, atmosphere, magic and not at least, the classic TD sound seemed to be gone. The 18-minute title-track has lots of time-changes and good themes, but personally I don't think this is the way TD should sound. And the synth-pop at the very end of the track is so unbearable and plastic sounding that it makes me puke. The same goes for many of the sounds in "Cloudburst Flight". "Thru Metamorphic Rocks" has some quite good and aggressive electronic rhythm- patterns. This would have been a good album if another group than TD had made it. It can't simply been compared to the ultimate genius and glory of masterpieces as "Phaedra", "Rubycon" and "Ricochet". As I said, the album is not bad, but it has nothing of the stuff that made me love the best 70's albums of TD.