Without
doubt, the recordings of Tangerine Dream have made the greatest impact on the
widest variety of instrumental music during the 1980s and '90s, ranging from the
most atmospheric new age and space music to the harshest abrasions of electronic
dance. Founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese in Berlin, the group has progressed
through a full three dozen lineups (Froese being the only continuous member with
staying power) and four distinct stages of development: the experimentalist
minimalism of the late '60s and early '70s; stark sequencer trance during the
mid- to late '70s, the group's most influential period; an organic form of
instrumental music on their frequent film and studio work during the 1980s; and,
finally, a more propulsive dance style, which showed Tangerine Dream with a
sound quite similar to their electronic inheritors in the field of dance music.
Froese, born in Tilsit, East Prussia in 1944, was little influenced by music
while growing up. Instead, he looked to the Dadaist and Surrealist art movements
for inspiration, as well as literary figures such as Gertrude Stein, Henry
Miller and Walt Whitman. He organized multimedia events at the residence of
Salvador Dali in Spain during the mid-'60s and began to entertain the notion of
combining his artistic and literary influences with music; Froese played in a
musical combo called the Ones, which recorded just one single before dissolving
in 1967. The first lineup of Tangerine Dream formed later that year, with Froese
on guitar, bassist Kurt Herkenberg, drummer Lanse Hapshash, flutist Voker
Hombach and Charlie Prince. The quintet aligned itself with contemporary
American acid rock (the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane), and played around
Berlin at various student events. The lineup lasted only two years, and by 1969
Froese had recruited wind player Conrad Schnitzler and drummer Klaus Schulze.
One of the trio's early rehearsals, not originally intended for release, became
the first Tangerine Dream LP when Germany's Ohr Records issued Electronic
Meditation in June 1970. The LP was a playground for obtuse music-making --
keyboards, several standard instruments, and a variety of household objects were
recorded and filtered through several effects processors, creating a sparse,
experimentalist atmosphere.
Both Schulze and Schnitzler left for solo careers later in 1970, and Froese
replaced them the following year with drummer Christopher Franke and organist
Steve Schroeder. When Schroeder left a year later, Tangerine Dream gained its
most stable lineup core when organist Peter Baumann joined the fold. The trio of
Froese, Franke and Baumann would continue until Baumann's departure in 1977, and
even then, Froese and Franke would compose the spine of the group for an
additional decade.
On 1971's Alpha Centauri and the following year's Zeit, the trio's increased use
of synthesizers and a growing affinity for space music resulted in albums that
pushed the margin for the style. Atem, released in 1973, finally gained
Tangerine Dream widespread attention outside Europe; influential British DJ John
Peel named it his LP of the year, and the group signed a five-year contract with
Richard Branson's Virgin Records. Though less than a year old, Virgin had
already become a major player in the recording industry, thanks to the massive
success of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (widely known for its use in the film
The Exorcist).
Tangerine Dream's first album for Virgin, Phaedra, was an milestone not only for
the group, but for instrumental music. Branson had allowed the group free rein
at Virgin's Manor Studios, where they used Moog synthesizers and sequencers for
the first time; the result was a relentless, trance-inducing barrage of rhythm
and sound, an electronic update of the late-'60s and early-'70s classical
minimalism embodied by Terry Riley. Though mainstream critics were
unsurprisingly hostile toward the album (it obviously made no pretense to rock &
roll in any form), Phaedra broke into the British Top 20 and earned Tangerine
Dream a large global audience.
The follow-ups Rubycon and the live Ricochet were also based on the blueprint
with which Phaedra had been built, but the release of Stratosfear in 1976 saw
the use of more organic instruments such as untreated piano and guitar; also,
the group added vocals for 1978's Cyclone, a move which provoked much criticism
from their fans. Both of these innovations didn't change the sound in a marked
degree, however; their incorporation into rigid sequencer patterns continued to
distance Tangerine Dream from the mainstream of contemporary instrumental music.
Baumann left for a solo career in 1978 (later founding the Private Music label),
and was replaced briefly by keyboard player Steve Joliffe and then Johannes
Schmoelling, another important member of Tangerine Dream who would stay until
the mid-'80s. In 1980, the Froese/Franke/Schmoelling lineup was unveiled at the
Palast der Republik in East Berlin, the first live performance by a Western
group behind the Iron Curtain. Tangerine Dream also performed live on TV with
the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra one year later, and premiered their studio
work on 1980s Tangram.
Mike Oldfield had shown the effectiveness of using new instrumental music forms
as a bed for film on Tubular Bells, and in 1977 The Exorcist's director William
Friedkin had tapped Tangerine Dream for soundtrack work on his film Sorcerer. By
the time the new lineup stabilized in 1981, Hollywood was knocking on the band's
door; Tangerine Dream worked on the soundtracks to more than 30 films during the
1980s, among them Risky Business, The Keep, Flashpoint, Firestarter, Vision
Quest and Legend. If the idea of standalone electronic music hadn't entered the
minds of mainstream America before this time, the large success of these
soundtracks (especially Risky Business) entrenched the idea and proved
enormously influential to soundtrack composers from all fields.
Despite all the jetting between Hollywood and Berlin, the group continued to
record proper LPs and tour the world as well. Hyperborea, released in 1983, was
their last album for Virgin, and a move to Zomba/Jive Records signaled several
serious changes for the band during the late '80s. After the first Zomba release
(a live concert recorded in Warsaw), 1985's Le Parc marked the first time
Tangerine Dream had flirted with sampling technology. The use of sampled
material was an important decision to make for a group which had always
investigated the philosophy of sound and music with much care, though Le Parc
was a considerable success -- both fans and critics calling it their best LP in
a decade. Tyger, released in 1987, featured more vocals than any previous
Tangerine Dream LP, and many of the group's fans were quite dispirited in their
disfavor.
Schmoelling left in 1988, to be replaced by the classically trained Paul
Haslinger and (for a brief time) Ralf Wadephul. Optical Race, released in 1988,
was the first Tangerine Dream album to appear on old bandmate Peter Baumann's
Private Music Records. Several more albums followed for the label, after which
Haslinger left to work on composing filmscores in Los Angeles. His replacement,
and the only other permanent member of Tangerine Dream since, was Edgar's son
Jerome Froese (whose photo had graced the cover of several TD albums in the
past). Another record-label change, to Miramar, preceded the release of 1992's
Rockoon, which earned Tangerine Dream one of their seven total Grammy
nominations. In the mid-'90s, the music of Tangerine Dream increasingly began to
reflect the group's influence on a generation of electronica and dance artists.
The duo continued to record and release live albums, remix albums, studio
albums, and soundtracks at the rate of about two albums per year into the late
'90s. Bringing back founding member Edgar Froese for concerts during this
period, the live Inferno documented their performance of Dante's classic novel
by the same name.
- John Bush, All Music Guide
Discografía:
220 Volt (Live)
A Sea Of Dreams
Alien Voices
Alpha Centauri
Ambient Monkeys
Analogue Space Years
Antarktis
Antarktis (Live)
Antique Dreams
Architecture In Motion
Argonautica Americana Volume 1 (bootleg)
Atem
Atlantic Bridges (compilation)
Atlantic Walls (compilation)
Autumn In Hiroshima
Bells Of Accra
Blue Dawn
Book of Dreams
Canyon Dreams
Catch Me If You Can
Coefficient Of Aural Expansion
Colorado Dreams
Cyberjam Collection
Cyclone
Dead Solid Perfect
Deadly Care
Destination Berlin
Dream Encores
Dream Mixes I
Dream Mixes II
Dream Mixes III
Dream Mixes IV
Dream Sequence - The Best Of
Dreaming On Danforth Avenue
East
Electronic Meditation
Electronic Orgy
Elektrobeats
Encore (Live)
Enigma At Render
Exit
Firestarter
Flashpoint
Force Majeure
Genesis
Goblins' Club
Great Wall of China
Green Desert
Hamburg Concert
Heartbreakers
Hyperborea
I-Box 1970-1990
In den Garten Pharaos - Bycicle Race
Inferno (Dante Alighieri – La Divina Commedia)
Jeanne D'Arc
Kyoto
L’Affaire Wallraff - The Man Inside
Le Parc
Legend
Lily on the beach
Live at Baltimore, Shriver Hall
Live at Ipswich, Gaumont Theatre
Live at Liverpool, Stadium
Live at Paris, Orange Theatre Antique
Live at Toronto, Music Hall
Live In Berlin 1987
Live in Boston,MA - Somerville Theatre
Live In Scottsdale, Arizona - 1992
Live Miles
Live Philipshalle Dusseldorf '78
Logos - Live at the Domion, London, 1982
Lost Tales
Luminous Visions
Madcap's Flaming Duty
Mars Polaris
Melrose
Melrose Years, Lily On The Beach
Metaphor
Miracle Mile
Mota Atma
Mystery Tracks Vol. II
Near Dark
Oasis
Ocean Waves Collection
Optical Race
Optical Race 2
Paradiso
Pergamon (Live)
Phaedra
Poland (Live)
Popol Vuh-In den Garten Pharaos
Purgatorio
Quichotte
Quinoa
Quinoa Extended
Rätikon
Ricochet
Risky Business
Rocking Mars
Rockoon
Rubycon
Rumpelstiltskin
Shy People
Silver Siren Collection
Sleeping Watches Snoring In Silence
Sohoman
Sony Centre Topping Out Ceremony Score
Sorcerer
Soundmill Navigator (Live)
Springtime In Nagasaki
Stratosfear
Summer in Nagasaki
Tangents
Tang-Go
Tangines Scales
Tangram
TD Plays TD
The Bells Of Accra
The Best Of Tangerine Dream
The Dream Mixes
The Dream Roots
The Keep
The Park Is Mine
The Private Music Of Tangerine Dreams
The Seven Letters From Tibet
Thief
Three O'Clock High
Tournado (Live)
Towards The Evening Star (The Orb Remix)
Transsiberia
Traumzeit
Turn of the Tides
Tyger
Tyranny of Beauty
Underwater Sunlight
Valentine Wheels (Live in London 1997)
Warsaw In The Sun
Warsaw Sala Kongresowa - Poland
Wavelength
What A Blast!
White Eagle
Zeit
Zoning
Tangerine Dream - Hyperborea
Tangerine Dream - Ricochet 1/2
Tangerine Dream - Cloudburst Flight
Tangerine Dream - Love On A Real Train
Tangerine Dream - White Eagle
Tangerine Dream - Cyclone
Roy Scheider & Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer
Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear
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