Tangerine Dream

Since there were a few comments about Tangerine Dream appearing in one of the other threads I thought it would be worth starting a thread specifically for them.

Their official website is - http://www.tangerinedream.org/ you can always hear a few selections from their discography there.

There are a lot of resources on the web for them, perhaps the best is 'Voices in the Net' - http://www.voices-in-the-net.de/

If you have look through there you will find a very comprehensive discography including the Tree and Leaves releases from which the Bootleg Boxes and the Bootmoon releases were taken.

Up until the end of 1980 their concerts were wholly, or mostly improvised, so there are some real gems in the live recordings from that period that never surfaced on their official releases. Due to their contract with Virgin, the band are not able to release official versions (from the soundboard) of the shows from that period, so much of their best live music is only available from this source.

I have seen Tangerine Dream four times, sadly never in the 70s, I was too young. The 1982 concert at Sheffield (a couple of days before the live album 'Logos' was recorded) is still one of the best concerts I have been to. It was the first time I had heard samplers live, and the sounds they used blew me away, as well as being a very loud concert, but with a fantastic PA (no distortion).

I saw them again in 1986 and they were good, but not as good as 1982, then again in 1990 when they were boring, apart from a great guitar section. In 1986 a friend and I walked out of the gig as it was so dull, we preferred to go for a curry.

I love their music from the Virgin years, and just after, 1974-1986, but after that with Chris Franke and Johannes Schmoelling leaving the band, they became very bland. I also think that the effort to make electronic music had gone, the earlier synthesizers were hard to make them play, and when the digital synths took over it became too easy to make the sounds, and the music lost its edge. Edgar Froese also seems to like the sampled flute and pan-pipes far too much for my liking.

My favourite official albums by Tangerine Dream are: Rubycon, Encore, Exit, White Eagle, Logos and Poland.
The Royal Albert Hall performance from Bootleg Box1 is also a favourite and Brussels February 1976 from the Tree recordings.

There are a few bands out there still making the sort electronic music Tangerine Dream made in the 70s, and I much prefer to see these bands rather than what I last saw of Tangerine Dream, or heard about their more recent concerts (miming?).

Redshift - who's first album is very reminiscent of Rubycon - http://www.redshift.biz/

They are headlining a very small day festival 'The Hampshire Jam' - http://www.hampshirejam.co.uk/ , which is a very nice event to go to.

Free System Projekt are also worth hearing - http://www.freesystemprojekt.nl/ , they are playing in Leicester next month.

It would be nice to meet up if anyone is going to either of the above events.

Anyway, there must be a few other old hippies here into retro-electronic music.