OFF : Tangerine Dream

[flossbac]

> > P.P.P.S.  I'm ignoring Tangerine Dream because I don't know enough about
> > them...I see merit in their first 'rock' album (Electronic Meditation),
but
> > I was bored with 'Zeit.'

Tangerine Dream has long been one of my obsessions.  The band is pretty much
useless now (and has been for quite some time-- at least a decade), but the
earlier stuff is some of the greatest experimental music of all time.  Until
you've heard "Atem" I don't think you know the true majesty of what space
rock might be-- cataclysmic stuff!  A lot of the earlier tangerine dream is
very intense and demands close listening to fully appreciate it--it's a very
subtle music and you can tell that the musicians were RIGHT THERE with each
note, feeling each note as it was played--it's not nearly as arbitrary as it
might seem with a casual listen.  After "Atem" the band became much more
electronic and turned out the classics "Phaedra" and "Rubycon" (both of
which I think are indispensable to a psychedelic education).  The live album
"Encore" from '77 was incredible in its peculiar balance of
classically-influenced keyboard stylings and prog noodling....a masterpiece,
with a beautiful and melancholy sequenced coda at the end!  After this, the
band was beginning to show the first signs of a long ailment....But
basically, in my opinion everything up to 1983 is generally pretty good.
"Thief" kind of sucked and so did "Exit" (except for one or two songs), but
the rest of the albums are pretty good from that time period.  There would
even be a few bright spots later with the opening track on "Underwater
Sunlight" and the "Livemiles" album, but then TD really started to stink
beyond anyone's imagining--on the same level of total new age shite as Yanni
and whatever else is out there.  PS--the edgar froese solo albums are very
nice too, particularly "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" which has some very
pretty mellotron.
John Majka
http://www.nlci.com/users/flossbac/hawkwind.html