Best Tangerine Dream Album (1970-1979)

I've been enjoying the Sorcerer soundtrack. from 1977, comprised of short pieces, so I guess it's atypical. some synth bits cry out "Depeche Mode!" "80s R&B!" like, prescient.

Word! Sorcerer was 'xactly the one I thought of first, too.

God I love that bit like 4:40 into "Phaedra" where it has that rolling bass line that sounds like a guitar

It sucks about the vocals on side 1 of cyborg because the music is pretty tight

Ok so what's the scoop on White Eagle? Geir's description sounds like most of what I listen to these days.

Yeah that period of T. Dream was very straightforward synth with a very poppy edge to it, so if you like that sort of thing you'll like White Eagle and Hyperborea...will probably hit the spot if you liked those early Jean-Michel Jarre albums like Oxygene and Equinoxe, too.

Sounds good, will have to keep an eye out for 'em.

white eagle sounds ace these days

its all about the title track.

Took me 11 years but I picked up the two post-Atem Virgin collections (which are very cheap and sound great) and basically every one of these records (ending at 1983's Hyperborea) is pretty excellent. Varies from pop ambient-new age-y synth to haunting moody soundtrack patches to kraut-trance-rock w solos to match. I'll have to sit down and figure out all my faves (Encores and Tangram are both uniformly excellent).

This past year I picked up the deluxe 2CD reissues of Atem, Alpha Centauri and Zeit, as well as the 4CD Virgin Years: 1974-1978 box, and this week I got the Edgar Froese Solo (1974-1983): The Virgin Years 4CD set as a companion. Lot of great stuff on there.

The amount of music they made in those years is amazing, love Froese's contemporary solo albums as well. TG is basically unimpeachable from their beginning through the mid 70s. And the 80s stuff is pretty cool too!

The amount of *quality* music, I should say. The purest 'light a spliff' records if you're willing

Force Majeure is my favorite TG album, though, by far

i find it hard to single out a fave as this whole era of the band is full of perfection for me.
from the early space rock grooves, via the bonkers vocals album (which i hated at first, but now love), to the then futuristic sounding brilliant use of midi enhanced sequencers.
a year ago i got the EF boxset and since then, my limited 12Gb phone has had the following on it :
the complete Virgin era TD material, the EF boxset, Kraftwerk remasters and the latest Neu! remasters.
i have had a few sonic based detours over the last 12 months, but this core set has been my mainstay of 2015.
and i am still not bored with any of it.
(hence the revival of the FAX groove in recent weeks)

Just listening to "Alpha Centauri", SOMEONE SHOOT THAT FLUTE PLAYER FFS! I use the phrase 'flute player' rather than 'flautist' because flautist implies someone who has some skill and knows what they're doing. The flute is a nearly insurmountable problem with a lot of (early) Krautrock - Florian Schneider is the only person who seems able to do anything useful with the damn thing. Also "Alpha Centauri" isn't very good.

flute is a beautiful sound you monster

the longer i've lived with TD the less interest i've got in anything from Ricochet on tbh

altho some of Froese's solo stuff is still good up to the v early 80s

nonsense... hyperborea, thief, wavelength, flashpoint, logos all totally rule

... and White Eagle and Poland.

Beyond Poland you're in rough territory though

I like the first couple of ones with haslinger ok

Yeah I've repped for Optical Race a few times on TD threads

as I think I've said on every TD thread, I get off the bus at Underwater Sunlight, although it has a couple of decent tracks.

I've decided I really don't like "Force Majeure" very much apart from that awesome end section to "Thru Metamorphic Rocks". The rest of it is too like tasteful prog rock for my taste, too 'musical', and too much guitar and, as I think I've said ad nauseum, I don't like Edgar Froese's guitar playing at all.

i have never ever FP'd anyone ever on ilm as its not my groove, but damn ...

LOL I was just listening to it and thinking this really is not the flavour of Tangerine Dream I prefer.

I agree with you vis-a-vis Froese's axe-spanking. Dude seemed to think he was some kind of Neil Young-manqué, but he really hadn't the chops. None of that detracts from his talent as a visionary electronicist, mind.

I think he was hearing Dave Gilmour in his head.

Also, I don't think they were very good at writing melodies - Schmoelling was the melody guy, and he didn't join them till later, I think? This album is just Froese and Franke, right?

Force Majeure is probably my favorite album of theirs post-73 idk, tons and tons of cool melodies in the title track, not too much generic sequencer stuff, cool “bad” guitar sound, go ahead FP me

More like Force Manure

i have never ever FP'd anyone ever on ilm as its not my groove, but damn ...

― mark e, Thursday, April 23, 2020 3:49 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm skipping straight to suggest ban

dang, i am such a doofus. i love the tangerine dream records i have (zeit, phaedra, stratosphear, and Froese's Aqua), and i've heard their 80s music through various film soundtracks (ok, Legend mostly), but i had no idea about Force Majeure. i kind of assumed their band trajectory was the ambient early stuff --> soundtracks and more cheesy stuff i knew they had more traditional band roots but i didn't realize they had an album like this, and especially not one in the late 70s! oops.

You should be warned that Cyclone, the album preceding Force Majeure, has vocals on it

not too much generic sequencer stuff

Talking of Suggest Bans. Generic sequencer stuff is virtually my favourite kind of music.

Also, since TD literally invented that sequencer-driven style of composition, it's kind of a low blow to insinuate that their use of the technique was uninspired!

you're allowed to use every trick in the book, if you wrote the book.

I think vocals are only on one side of Cylone? But yeah, the non-vocal stuff on there rules

re:sequencer arpeggios n stuff....ehhh but I just don’t like the sound of it for the most part, sorry

if there were secret Patrick Crowley remixes of 70s Virgin TD, I’d be all in

re:sequencer arpeggios n stuff....ehhh but I just don’t like the sound of it for the most part, sorry

Is there another band called Tangerine Dream out there I've not heard yet?

https://img.discogs.com/56vOaoxFJ9-WnL2-pXWKiLAf7-M=/fit-in/494x480/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1029642-1185955842.jpeg.jpg

is there much sequencer stuff on the first four albums? I mean, I used to dig all the Virgin stuff but people change. they did a lot of cool stuff besides arpeggios

I think "Phaedra" is the first one with sequencers but it is pretty much their signature sound, or definitely the most recognisable.

I mean, "That sounds like Tangerine Dream", doesn't usually refer to guitar playing that reminds you of Edgar Froese, for instance.

right because all tangerine dreams before force Majeure only had sequencers, no other instruments or synthesized sounds

anyway yeah I know I’m a clod, whatever

just a bit of fun, Tom d, I’m not mad or anything

Sorry to everyone else for shitting up to thread

lol any excuse to bullshit about TD

OTM