Tangerine Dream - The Virgin Years 1977-1983 (2012)

Tangerine Dream - The Virgin Years (1977-1983) contains 7 of Tangerine Dream’s catalog releases for a very affordable price and each includes bonus tracks & rarities Starting with the live album “Encore” (1977), the album was recorded on their American tour with the line-up of Chris Franke, Peter Baumann and Edgar Froese, followed by the single ‘Monolight’ b/w ‘Hobo March’, available on CD for the first time. “Force Majeure” (1979) reduced to the duo of Christopher Franke and Edgar Froese, recorded at Hansa Studios in Berlin. “Tangram” (1980) The band were joined by Johannes Schmoelling. The album comprises of two lengthy, 20 minute pieces and became their fifth biggest selling album. “Exit” (1981) First track “Kiew Mission” features a female voice chanting in Russian, set with the backdrop of the Cold War era. The voice chants the names of the worlds continents, pleading to end the threat of nuclear war. The album is complemented by two bonus tracks. White Eagle (1982) also had great success in Germany where a remix of the title track became theme music for the German TV Series “Tatort” .“Logos” (1982) live two part album; 50 minutes taken from the 2 hour concert recorded at London’s Dominion theatre in November 1982. “Hyperborea” 1983’s completes this seven album collection. Hyperborea the album title refers to an idyllic land in Ancient Greek, where the sun shone 24 hours a day. ~stormingthebase




Encore: Tangerine Dream Live, 1977 is one of the better concert albums from Tangerine Dream. As with most of their live releases, this disc features all new material. Each of the long-form (over 16 minutes) pieces has its own set of movements. In effect, it is like listening to four electronic symphonies. This is also one of the strongest TD lineups. The set features Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann on synthesizers, effects and other electronic devices. (It is Baumann's last recording with the band.) The music ranges from dirge-like drones to piano solos to crashing experimental textures. There are echoes of progressive and avant-garde rock. The set is uniquely Tangerine Dream, however, with similarities to Genesis, Pink Floyd and other art rock practitioners of that era. ~Allmusic

Track listing
Encore (Live 1977)
01. Cherokee Lane (16:19)
02. Monolight (19:41)
03. Coldwater Canyon (17:40)
04. Desert Dream (17:40)
bonus:
05. Monolight (3:10)
06. Hobo March (4:47)
~ (79:17)







Force Majeure: Although Tangerine Dream is usually associated with synthesizers and the ambient movement that followed over a decade after such albums as Phaedra, Stratosfear, and Rubycon were recorded, Force Majeure shows the band displaying its roots in space rock. This time around, guitar and drums (played by Klaus Krieger) are as prominent as the keyboards. As the name would appear to indicate, the music on the album doesn't seem played so much as propelled forward, the overall pace rarely slackening for long. The title track is a suite that incorporates several distinct themes that segue into a cohesive whole via musical bridges. "Cloudburst Flight" is really an excuse for Edgar Froese to display his virtuosity on the electric six-string, which he does with amazing intensity. "Thru Metamorphic Rocks" begins with what sounds to be an album-ending theme, but then cross-fades into a hypnotic piece that builds upon a constant bed of pulsating sequencers and processed drums with various sound effects and still more keyboards until it fades out completely some 14 minutes later. An absolute necessity to those who might be at all curious about the band, or even successful experiments within the rock genre. Sections of the album would later appear in slightly altered versions on the soundtracks to the movies Risky Business and Thief.
Tangram: Tangram marked the beginning of a new musical direction for Tangerine Dream. It's closer to straight-ahead, melodic new age music and more tied to their soundtrack material. The first of the two side-long pieces progresses through several different passages that use gently brushed acoustic guitars as well as the requisite synthesizers. For new age fans, this is the first glimmering of Tangerine Dream's eventual direction during the '80s. ~Allmusic

Track listing
Force Majeure (1977)
01. Force Majeure (18:21)
02. Cloudburst Flight (7:29)
03. Thru Metamorphic Rocks (14:30)
Tangram (1980)
04. Tangram (Set 1) (19:48)
~ (60:08)







Exit: Exit marks the beginning of a new phase in Tangerine Dream's music: Gone were the side-long, sequencer-led journeys, replaced by topical pieces that were more self-contained in scope, more contemporary in sound. Johannes Schmoelling's influence is really felt for the first time here; Tangram, for all its crispness and melody, was simply a refinement of Force Majeure's principles, and the soundtrack to Thief not an album proper. On Exit, listeners are introduced to electronic music's next generation, notably on "Choronzon" and "Network 23," which brought the sound of the dancefloor into the mix (it hasn't left since). That's not to suggest that Tangerine Dream has stopped creating eerie, evocative music; both "Pilots of Purple Twilight" and the stately "Exit" will feel familiar to fans, and the opening "Kiew Mission" is a captivating commentary on nuclear war that includes vocals after a sort (a woman's voice reading locations in Russian). Exit ends on a surprisingly dark note, the alien and foreboding "Remote Viewing." It's on this track more than any other that Tangerine Dream returns to its past, invoking Phaedra and the sequencer-driven works that followed, as if to tell fans that Exit's changes weren't the result of a new band, just a new direction. With one foot in the excesses of the past and one clearly on the road to a more concise sound, Exit is a transitional work. As Schmoelling and, later, Paul Haslinger exerted their influence on Tangerine Dream's music, the emphasis shifted from dark and moody commentary to more positive subjects. It's worth noting that Edgar Froese's social conscience fuels much of Exit – copies of the record were made available to a cross-section of Russian citizens free of charge to promote an open exchange of ideas at a time when nuclear annihilation was taken seriously. Future albums channeled Froese's activism to environmental concerns, which dovetailed with the band's by-then new age sensibilities. Both here and on White Eagle, Tangerine Dream ushers in the promise and the peril of a new world where reality has caught up with science fiction. Perhaps with such a message, the medium needed to be simpler and more direct. (A note to collectors: Different cover art appears on the Virgin and Elektra releases.) ~Allmusic

Track listing
Tangram (1980)
01. Tangram (Set 2) (20:29)
Exit (1981)
02. Kiew Mission (9:21)
03. Pilots Of Purple Twilight (4:22)
04. Choronzon (4:10)
05. Exit (5:35)
06. Network 23 (4:58)
07. Remote Viewing (8:21)
bonus:
08. Beach Scene (3:23)
09. Burning Bar (3:10)
~ (63:48)







White Eagle: Tangerine Dream experiments with an ever-widening lexicon of sound on White Eagle, though the arrangements tend to suffer for it. The album's principle work is "Mojave Plan," a four-movement, 20-minute song that represents some of the darkest music they've recorded in a while. Perhaps it was Edgar Froese's fear of nuclear annihilation that fueled this bleak view of the future, but the piece's effectiveness is undermined by the decision to continually dabble with different sounds. Where earlier extended pieces tended to move the listener from point A to point B, "Mojave Plan" doesn't flow so much as fuse disjointed sections together. The remaining songs are more cohesive, though Christopher Franke's sequencer patterns, while initially intoxicating, remain static here. That's not a problem on the brief "Midnight in Tula"; four minutes of contagious dance music that turns corners as tight as a Polyrock tune is a welcome respite at this point in the album. "Convention of the 24" clocks in at under ten minutes, and is arguably the closest in effect to Tangram et al. The album closes on a pleasant note with "White Eagle," a mesmerizing song that spins on a slightly off-kilter axis while delivering a lovely little melody in the bargain, in some ways suggesting a meeting of Tangerine Dream's sequencer-led journeys and Cluster's playful side. While it's ultimately an uneven work, White Eagle is clearly the sum of its parts, and readily identifiable as the work of Tangerine Dream. Perhaps Froese had relinquished too much of the music to Johannes Schmoelling, whose curiosity for new sounds often comes across as restlessness. Most likely, though, TD wanted to move its music into the modern age. People weren't as likely to sit in a lotus position for 40 minutes as they were in the '70s – a point that Exit acknowledged. Conceptually, the band members fall back on familiar ways with White Eagle, but musically their minds are operating on a more contemporary level. It's not an ideal amalgam, suggesting the band was at a stylistic crossroads.
Logos: Tangerine Dream suffers from a slight case of growing pains on Logos: Live at the Dominion, having recently turned off their lava lamps and opened up their programmers' manuals. Chris Franke, recently-joined Johannes Schmoelling, and the ever-present frontman Edgar Froese seem to be leaning on their new equipment more than usual, making this concert sequentially denser than previous ones. The results are frequently bland, as if they expected the machines to write the songs for them as well. Still, the trio follows their trusted formula of lengthy exploration in six to eight parts, continuing some degree of organic looseness. As part one begins, synths gurgle to life, ghostly strings float over a slow DX7 pulse that gives way to drum machines within the first minute, and they're off to what may have seemed revolutionary at the time: three men slouched over ominous-looking patch bays and consoles to produce exotic textures of science fiction. Six or seven minutes later, things ease back to an anthemic keyboard rock that, structurally at least, puts them in more familiar territory (albeit bland). Next, at the 14-minute mark, the foundation is laid for what borrows liberally from (and builds on top of) Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, precisely sampled and included either out of respect, or leaned on for necessary inspiration (consequentially, it's debatable as to who gets credit for this high-point; Reich or the Krautrockers). Part two carries out a waltz of sorts for the first ten minutes of icy electronica, but then a curious, mechanical march breaks through the gates and shuffles gradually towards another cold pop section. Froese leaves his electric guitar behind for this concert, but the keyboard solo here shows similar abandon over laser harp arpeggios. At 17 minutes, another roll-the-credits passage of down tempo synth rock unfurls it's flag, and this time it just feels like the finale, with an easygoing spirit and syrupy melody line. The enthusiastic London audience apparently clapped loud enough to hear "Dominion," a short-form futuristic pop number for the encore (rare for their earlier live albums to include this novelty) that's compositionally a bit heavy on formula, and a bit light on personality. Several moments on Logos meet with the same fate, but perhaps it's the new machines to blame, as much as the men relying on them. ~Allmusic

Track listing
White Eagle (1982)
01. Mojave Plan (20:08)
02. Midnight In Tula (4:00)
03. Convention Of The 24 (9:36)
04. White Eagle (4:36)
Logos (Live 1982)
05. Logos Part I (25:40)
~ (63:59)







Hyperborea: Tangerine Dream set the stage for the style of "artsy" soundtrack music that dominated the '80s. Although Hyperborea is not a soundtrack, it was clearly influential on some of the work the group was hired to do for Risky Business, Flashpoint, Dreamscape, Firestarter, Legend, and close to 20 others. There have been at least a dozen members in this trio over the years, but the assembly of Chris Franke, Edgar Froese, and Johannes Schmoelling proved to be one of the most prolific and influential. Hyperborea was a turning point for the band – a distinctive departure from the free-form psychedelica-and-moog prog rock improvisations, it was an album of crispness, structure, and a little bravery too – a showcase for artists with enough chops to adjust to the new technology without getting lost in it. Getting its hands on the popular new keyboards of the mid-'80s, the band found wonderful textures, richly overlapping sequences, and on some level a chance to reinvent themselves, and with great results. Recorded in Berlin in 1983, it was the shape of things to come for the remainder of the decade. ~Allmusic

Track listing
Logos (Live 1982)
01. Logos Part II (19:31)
02. Dominion (5:45)
Hyperborea (1983)
03. No Man's Land (9:11)
04. Hyperborea (8:41)
05. Cinnamon Road (3:59)
06. Sphinx Lightning (19:52)
~ (66:59)



Thx to Gigaflat