Tangerine Dream - The pioneers of kosmische musik

Tangerine Dream are the foremost exponents of kosmische musik, that extraordinary electronic "new wave" that erupted in Germany at the dawn of the Seventies. A scene made up of genuine musicians, often with a classical background, who managed to give a new meaning to the use of keyboards and synthesizers in music, shifting the center of gravity of psychedelic rock from the heart of the mind to the far reaches of the universe.

The original nucleus formed in Berlin in 1966 at the initiative of guitarist Edgar Froese, who already led an acid-rock outfit in the vein of Pink Floyd, whose fame rested on a performance at a Salvador Dalí exhibition. The lineup was completed by percussionist Klaus Schulze, later destined for a brilliant solo career, and keyboardist Conrad Schnitzler. This is the ensemble that produced the single "Lady Greengrass/ Love Of Mine", followed by the debut album, Electronic Meditation, which reworked their early, Floyd-indebted intuitions in an even freer, more expansive key, adding a touch of teutonic solemnity while also nodding to the contemporary psychedelia of fellow countrymen Amon Duul. Distorted guitars, free-form percussion, a mighty organ, noises captured from instruments of every kind (and even household objects) and an unsettling string section forge a sound at the crossroads of rock and the avant-garde, reaching its peak on the 12-minute epic "Reise Durch Ein Brennendes Gehirn".

The collaboration with Schulze and Schnitzler ended shortly after: the former would become a solo artist and electronic wizard, first avant-garde ("Irrlicht", "Cyborg") and later more "accessible", the latter a celebrated virtuoso within the ranks of Cluster. Froese then put together a new lineup, with Steve Schroyder and percussionist Christopher Franke (ex-Agitation Free). With this setup the group staged the sensational "flipper konzert", a performance for electronic keyboards and six pinball machines wired into the amplification system.

The official term "cosmic music" was coined, however, with the following album Alpha Centauri (1971). It's a sequence of suites often born of improvisation, in the style of psychedelic rock, but also jazz-rock and avant-garde music. The use of analog synths, like the Ems, becomes heavier, and the jagged edges of their early work tend to converge into a more enveloping, dreamlike sonic flow, an ideal soundtrack for space exploration.

The tracklist consists of just three songs, 40 minutes of "interstellar overdrive" through the textures of distorted Hammond organ, synthesizer echoes and the mournful phrasing of Froese's Les Paul. An almost "pastoral" flute and an increasingly chaotic percussion section round out the picture. The outcome is remarkably evocative, starting with the long solar journey of "Sunrise In The Third System", where organ and keyboards paint a fresco of sacred intensity, continuing with the thirteen-plus minutes of "Fly And Collision Of Comas Sola", lost in cosmic void, with the organ running wild trying to chart a course through a magma of noises and effects, and the flute chasing an oasis of peace amid the raging drumming. The closing title track is almost the definitive manifesto of this astral electronic music, this time almost entirely devoid of rhythm, with synth oscillations, reverbs and scattered flute phrases leaving a luminous trail in the great darkness of the Cosmos.

Afterwards, Schroyder left the band in favor of Hans Peter Baumann, and Tangerine Dream put the instruments of traditional rock into storage to focus solely on electronic synthesizers.

Zeit (1972) is the first record credited to the trio of Froese-Franke-Baumann, who would become the backbone of the group. Tangerine Dream put the instruments of traditional rock into storage to focus solely on electronic synthesizers. Their premise was to bring the allure of the visual arts into music, through a series of "sidereal journeys". A result that, on the grooves of Zeit, translates into a sequence of suites, often born of improvisation in the style of psychedelic rock, but also free-jazz and avant-garde music, with the synthesizers releasing galactic hums into the great void of the Universe. The listener is thus plunged into a whirlwind of dissonance, echoes, reverbs, noises and electronic distortions, suspended in the void of total rhythmic absence.

A double album, dark and menacing from the cover onward, Zeit is a symphony in four movements (one per side), marked by rigorous minimalism and Stockhausen-style electronic treatments. Its nearly 75 minutes of music are built on a series of sonic layers in constant dialogue with fragments of silence. Dissonance is the absolute protagonist and acts as the connective thread between the four tracks. But what also defines the work is the visionary, almost "painterly" quality of these spatial excursions.

The bleak overture of "Birth Of Liquid Plejades" opens with a cello quartet, floating as if in zero gravity. A "phase shifting" effect introduces the second part of the movement, marked by a liquid timbre that seems almost to depict sidereal matter in an embryonic state. Dominating the scene are the electronic breezes of the two VCS3s (Franke and Baumann) and the dark detonations of Froese's generator. After about a quarter of an hour, the third part of the piece takes shape, marked by a dense web of dissonance, left to float in a nebula of organ and moog (the latter played by Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh).

The idea, once again, is of an interstellar journey through which majestic notes and slowed-down sounds flow. Spatial reverbs, the hiss of asteroids, distant echoes, metallic noises follow one another over an arrhythmic backdrop, yet one that's always dark and charged with suspense. A sense of emptiness in the face of the boundless Cosmos is also conjured by the multi-timbral "Nebulous Dawn", which begins by simulating the launch of a hypothetical orbiting space station, before gradually fading into an increasingly ethereal, intangible sonic dimension. The slender fabric of "Origin of Supernatural Probabilities" is so rarefied it brushes against the new age music of many years later: a prelude entrusted to an unsettling silence, barely grazed by a few distant guitar chords, is followed by the start of a long pattern that seems almost to make a mixture of air bubbles bubble over, with the electric guitar sketching abstract flourishes in the background. And the mind returns to the magical ballet of spaceships in "2001: A Space Odyssey", Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece.

The fourth and final movement, the title track, is at once the most pretentious and the most impressive. From this dark, at times disturbing sonic magma, from these hisses of stellar wind, a mysterious energy seems almost to be released. A bass glissando anticipates the plunge into a cosmic abyss that closely resembles the darkness of the mind, the darkest recesses of the psyche.

Zeit's raids among the Pleiades evoke the space sagas of Isaac Asimov, but also the darkest scenarios of the biblical Apocalypse. These are blends of sounds drawn from both Western and Eastern cultures, especially Arabic. The monotonous march of the oscillators and the symphonic carpets conjured by synths and mellotrons prefigure landscapes that are distant, mystical, alien, yet at the same time present in our unconscious. A concept album about "time" — the time of space, stretched into infinity, but also human time, the escape from the obsessive rhythms that mark out our daily lives — Zeit reveals that it is above all toward our own galaxy that we must turn our gaze to find inner balance.

The work earns the title of "album of the year" in Germany and launches Tangerine Dream in Britain as well.

The following Atem (1973) probably marks the band's furthest "escape" from rock conventions, in search of sounds more typically avant-garde and almost "classical". For the first time working alone, without the contribution of notable guests, Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann shut themselves away in the studio and produce four impressive sonic "monoliths".

The opening title track "Atem" (a "breath" stretched out over 20 agonizing minutes) picks up the thread begun three years earlier with Electronic Meditation, with Franke's impetuous drumming dictating the rhythm amid a swarm of noises and effects, while organ and synths leave a liquid trail in which, for the first time, the unmistakable, majestic sound of the mellotron (in loop) creeps in — a sound that will become a recurring feature of the band's later work. The eleven minutes of "Fauni-Gena" continue along the same lines, this time transporting the listener into the immense green of a rainforest, with mellotron loops alternating with synthesized sounds of exotic birds and other unidentified creatures of the woods.

"Circulation of Events", on the other hand, is a more reflective piece, dominated by organ and synth phrases and barely rippled by the vibrations of the VCS3. The album closes with the unsettling "Wahn", where a jumble of voices, screams and grunts, duly treated and reverberated, gradually gives way to a percussive crescendo and a subtle embroidery of mellotron.

Having reached the peak of their experimentation, Tangerine Dream gradually turn toward a more composed and alluring electronic sound, no less interesting for it, as shown by Phaedra (1974), the album that introduces the captivating electronic pulse that would make the fortune of many of their later releases.

The splendid title track is a fifteen-minute cosmic trance unfolding across several passages, among which a memorable one marked by a poignant keyboard melody, wrapped in a cloud of fearsome moog and mellotron effects, stands out. Once again the band's classic approach is confirmed, able to forge a thoroughly intelligible sound even amid apparent chaos. This is also borne out by two thrilling pieces such as "Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares" (an astonishing solo by Edgar Froese, grappling with majestic cathedrals of synth), and "Movements Of A Visionary", an even more experimental piece that relies on treated voices and whispers to lend an even more estranging sense to its arpeggios, in a constant alternation between rhythm and stasis.

At that point Froese launches, with Aqua, a solo career that would continue over the years alongside his work with his inseparable partners Franke and Baumann.

At the end of '74, Tangerine Dream take part in a memorable performance alongside Nico in the cathedral of Reims, France.

1975 sees the release of Rubycon, an album that tones down the melodramatic tension of earlier works in favor of increasingly calm, limpid atmospheres. Considered the peak of Tangerine Dream's "figurative" phase, and a gold record in Australia as well, it is a work that relies largely on the faint cries of the keyboards, the crescendo of the sequencers, and a jagged galaxy of timbres.

The symphonic, almost "baroque" quality of Tangerine Dream's suites nonetheless remains very much alive. A case in point is the opening "Rubycon Part 1", which slowly takes shape, moving from a cold, rarefied start toward a progressive opening into warmer, more "airborne" sounds, with the modular rhythms of the sequencers accompanied by brief melodic phrases traced by mellotron, strings, organ and synthetic choirs. The second side ("Rubycon Part 2") continues in these subdued tones, right up to the evanescence of the final sound, in which only faded, distant melodies remain, lost in boundless space.

Thirty-five minutes of pure electronic music, confirming all the talent of the German band, regardless of the later (and thoroughly tiresome) disputes over their supposed "commercial drift".

Later works accentuate the "humanization" of the stellar music made by these Berlin cybernauts, who over the years earn themselves the reputation of being the "German Pink Floyd". Ricochet (1976) is another refined example of alluring, melodious electronic music, unfolding between spare electronic foundations and sinuous, melodic instrumental improvisation. There are only two tracks, for roughly twenty minutes in total, drawn from various live recordings, mostly taken from the show at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, London.

Tender melodic harmonies alternate with sudden bursts of rhythm, yet without ever jolting the listener out of this slow slide into a cosmic trance. Sidereal hisses, spatial winds, harmonies of classical charm, and ambient patterns alternate in a score that is indeed more "controlled" than their early work, but certainly no less elegant.

Stratosfear (1976), the first album without any more interminable suites, still doesn't skimp on interesting experimentation, such as the melancholy adagio of "3 Am At The Border" or the classical-leaning digression of "The Big Sleep In Search Of Shades", marking a tentative return to more rock-oriented structures, aided also by the reintroduction of traditional instruments such as piano and guitar.

Meanwhile, Baumann leaves the group, replaced by Steve Jolliffe of Steamhammer and subsequently by Johannes Schmoelling: the latter would make a fundamental contribution to the Tangerine sound of the 80s.

The musical climate, meanwhile, is no longer so favourable: the explosion of punk, new wave and early synth-pop (the latter also greatly indebted to cosmic music) puts into crisis a vision of electronic music that, beyond the German avant-garde (Tangerine Dream, Can, Schulze, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Faust), had also found leading exponents in Britain (Brian Eno) and France (the more "accessible" Jean-Michel Jarre).

With Cyclone (1978), Froese tries to revive the band's fortunes, making room for vocals for the first time (courtesy of Steve Jolliffe, who also contributes winds and keyboards), but the result leaves more than a few doubts. "Madrigal Meridian" is nonetheless a good example of this new sound, in which percussive rhythms give backbone to the soft arpeggios of the textures.

Force Majeure (1979) tries its hand at a return to a flamboyant instrumental rock in the style of Mike Oldfield, buoyed by the aggressive title track, the guitar onslaught of "Thru Metamorphic Rocks" and that "Cloudburst Flight" destined to become a staple of their live shows. A certainly bold attempt, but one that only partly succeeds.

Tangram (1980), on the other hand, offers up a long two-part suite, revealing here and there the signs of a rediscovered electronic vitality, thanks to the union of intricate guitar work and synthetic layers.

The 80s open with records that are always well-crafted, but not fully convincing in terms of songwriting (White Eagle, Hyperborea, Underwater Sunlight); yet for Froese and his bandmates, the decade also marks the start of a prolific career in film music. The soundtrack for "Sorcerer" introduces them to Hollywood, followed by "Thief", "Wavelength", "Risky Business", "Firestarter", "Flashpoint", "Heartbreakers", "Legend", "Near Dark", "Three O'Clock High", "Shy People", "The Keep", "Red Heat", "The Park Is Mine", "Forbidden", "Vision Quest", "Destination Berlin", "Dead Solid Perfect", "Tangents", "Man Inside", "Miracle Mile", many of which remain unreleased.

Even though the quality of their output is now on the wane, the imprint of Tangerine Dream remains clearly visible across the entire electronic pop movement of the 80s and the subsequent new age scene, of which they can be considered among the most significant forerunners. Like Jean-Michel Jarre, and even more so than Kraftwerk, the "late" Tangerine Dream manage to draw massive crowds to electronic music concerts usually reserved for niche audiences.

From pioneers they turn into popularisers, churning out an endless series of singles and performing in every corner of the world (their intense live activity is documented by a string of live albums, from Encore to Logos, from Pergamon to Live Miles, from Poland to 220 Volt). The story of the Berlin cybernauts proves to be a genuine saga, shuttling between Berlin and Hollywood. "Ours is a long story that can be divided into several episodes," explains Edgar Froese. "Technological innovations aside, it's as if over the years we've kept a kind of diary. Whatever we have been or done, as individuals or as a group, can be read in what we did on stage or on record. Listening to our music is like reading our history, it's an open book."

In 1987 Franke too leaves Froese, who carries on, bringing his son Jerome into the fold and skilfully tapping into the new age vein. A year later Schmoelling also departs, replaced by Paul Haslinger and (for a brief period) Ralf Wadephul.

Optical Race (1988) is the first Tangerine Dream album to be released on former bandmate Peter Baumann's Private Music Records.

In the Nineties, new musical trends too, such as the stratospheric post-rock of Labradford, would bring the sounds of Tangerine Dream back into the light. Not to mention the enormous influence the Berliners would exert on the house and techno scenes (two names above all: Laurent Garnier and Underworld).

But in the meantime, the music of the Zeit cybernauts would forever lose that solemn, restless and visionary soul that had characterised it since its very beginnings.

Lily On The Beach, Melrose, Turn Of The Tides, Tyranny Of Beauty and all the various subsequent works are emblematic of the German band's new, by now tired and dulled course, which stays afloat solely thanks to class and craftsmanship.

The move to Miramar precedes the 1992 album, Rockoon, which earns the by-now veteran outfit one of their seven Grammy nominations.

The German band would continue to release live albums, remixes, studio works and soundtracks, never abandoning their proverbial prolificacy even into the 2000s. With Edgar Froese's return to the live lineup, there was also room for the evocative live album Inferno, documenting their performance inspired by Dante's "Divine Comedy", followed two years later by Purgatorio. In 2006, Rocking Mars pursues yet another (and weary) blend of rock and synthetic sounds, while, a year later, Madcap's Flaming Duty, which celebrates the glorious German outfit's fortieth anniversary in the worst possible way, with a flabby and worn-out synth-pop, accompanying lyrics based on 17th- and 18th-century Anglo-American poetry. All of it dedicated to Syd Barrett, who would hardly have appreciated it…

The progressive fading of the last twenty years, however, should not cast doubt on the greatness of one of the fundamental projects in the history of electronic music. Tangerine Dream have left future generations an inheritance of inestimable value. A monolith well worth a space odyssey.

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