Tangerine Dream direction sought

Finally did something I've been meaning to do for oohh.....probably 25 years or so acquired a Tangerine Dream album - Mars Polaris to be precise.

Not dischuffed at all I must say and was wondering where to go next with such an extensive catalogue to choose from.

Any advice/ comments appreciated

Taa
Jeff

 

TD started as quite a free form avant garde band of the kind that could only be born in 1960s Germany, the first four albums mix real instruments with early electronics to produce some amazing textures and spaces. The first album Electronic Meditation can almost be seen as a companion piece to Floyd's Saucerful Of Secrets; organ driven trance grooves with seriously fried psychedelic guitar. After Electronic Meditation Klaus Schulze left / was booted out to form the most excellent Ash Ra Temple. The next 3 albums Alpha Centauri, Zeit and Atem are all wonderful examples of totally spaced early Krautrock, Alpha Centauri being especially beautiful and Zeit, a huge beat-less double paving the way for ambient house 17 years later.

The next two albums, Phaedra and Rubycon, represent the last two truly great TD albums IMHO, these are the point at which the analogue step sequencer arrived and the point where they found their mid 70s identity. By this time any non-electronic instruments that survived were processed to a point their existence was largely irrelevant – this is pure electronica and was truly groundbreaking - most of 'the right things to do with a synthesizer' were invented here. Around this time Edgar Froese released two truly excellent solo albums, Aqua and Epsilon in Malaysian Pale, both are well worth tracking down. After this point I loose interest in Tangerine Dream as to my ears it all started going horribly wrong...

Tony.

 

Ditto most of What TonyL said. Definitely avoid the mid 70s onwards (Stratosphere, Ricochet etc), it's pretty dull. There's a sense of progress from Electronic Meditation (recently repressed on vinyl incidentally) to Phaedra but it got pretty stagnant after that.

 

I agree with Tony - the best two for me are Phaedra and Rubycon. I went to see them live at the time of the Stratosfear tour. A lot of it for the first part was still pure electronic, but then they got out -- a guitar! I still play the album but it took a while to get used to the change of sound, and my buying of them stopped after that, which must say something.

 

The trouble with the later stuff is that it is just so rooted in it’s time – it either sounds like the soundtrack to some dodgy early 80s video-nasty or has some dreadfully corny Jean Michel Jarre-like melody blighting the foreground. The first six TD albums along with the two Froese solos have aged astonishingly gracefully, like so much early 70s German music they still sound fresh and groundbreaking today.

Castle Communications repressed the first four in the late 90s and they are very decent though are getting quite thin on the ground now. I’ve got three of them (I already had a nice original of AC). Zeit crackles a bit, but it is so empty it is the kind of album that will show any surface noise – possibly one for CD to be honest.

Tony.

 

My favourite is Ricochet...

 

Being an "induhvidual" (Dilbert fan as well...!) who possesses an obscene amount of Tadream recordings...ALL the legal stuff and a vast amount of ROIO's, I do tend to agree that the point up to and including the release of Rubycon, was when they were at their peak...

...that is, at least the line-up of Froese-Baumann-Franke...

They were "of their time"...and I believe they always will be...regardless of personnel...

I'm presently listening to Underwater Sunlight on vinyl, from 1986, featuring Frose, Haslinger and Franke...

...it's absolutely superb, and still very fresh...

Totally different from Phaedra and Rubycon and Zeit and Atem I admit...but good nonetheless, and still (IMO) original...

With the exception of Tyger, and possibly Cyclone, I don't think there's any "unlistenable" TD recordings...

...but then I'm maybe biased...?

Dougie.

 

I have most albums upto Hyperborea (1983), but the next album I bought after that was Le Parc which I thought was shockingly bad and sold it immediately and never bought another TD afterwards.

It has also been ommitted that another great piece of early work is 'Green Desert', this was original recorded in 1973 I think but did not see the light of day until the mid-80's.

 

Re Tangerine Dream

It has to be Zeit and it is possible to buy new re masted copies on a double LP with a gatefold album sleeve- it totally destroys the CD version it is almost like listening to another peice of music

regards

kenneth