Tangerine Dream Reissues

I hadn't heard of the two compilations, the first 'Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares' looks quite interesting, the other is from their later material and would probably be best avoided.

Their 70s music evolved from fairly tuneless atmospherics to some very powerful melodic and rhythmic compositions/improvisations. 'Phaedra' was at the start of their sound really coming together, but 'Rubycon' is excellent, one of their very best.

As I play though CD, I can't comment on the pressings though.

Their music in the first half of the 80's was good too, much more direct melodies and more conventional rhythms, but emotional and still with great atmosphere.

In 1986 Johannes Schmoelling left, soon followed by Chris Franke, and the music deteriorated into characterless pan pipes new age fare. Adding a sax player was also a terrible move. Avoid any album after 1986.

It is also worth mentioning that there are some real gem among the many release from the 'Tangerine Tree', bootleg releases condoned by the band, so vinyl there though I am afraid.

Thanks for the reply Jamie.

I entirely agree that the best of TD features Froese/Franke and either Baumann/Hoenig/Schmoelling.

Anything after Chris Franke departed is indeed irredeemably dire.

Phaedra and Rubycon have always been favourites of mine (along with Ricochet and Tangram). My copy of Rubycon has been with me for 30 years and is beginning to show its age, hence wondering if these vinyl re-issues are worth a punt.

As for the Bootleg box sets I am on the look out for Vol 1 as it covers the Ricochet era extremely well when they were reputedly the loudest band of all. Perhaps they had amps that went up to 11.............?

quote:

Originally posted by Richard S:
I have spotted some 180g vinyl reissues on Virgin of Phaedra and Rubycon. Both are from digital remasters originally done in 1995.

Has anyone heard them? Are they any good?

Richard

In my opinion you should be able to plump for these remasters of Rubycon and Phaedra with some confidence.

I have an analogue version of Phaedra and recently bought the Virgin remaster of Rubycon (my original went awol) and was pleasantly surprised.

Not saying it is better than a clean analogue pressing but it has been sympathetically mastered for LP - vibrant and detailed, and engaging.

And it was less than £17 if I remember right.

Regards
David

quote:

Originally posted by Richard S:
As for the Bootleg box sets I am on the look out for Vol 1 as it covers the Ricochet era extremely well when they were reputedly the loudest band of all. Perhaps they had amps that went up to 11.............?

The Tangerine Tree went well beyond the Bootleg Box Volumes 1 & 2.

The 'Leaves' was a follow on that released less high quality recordings, as well as later tours. A few of those releases do document how much volume microphones could withstand, OK in the gentle sections, but pretty unlistenable once the bass sequencers kicked in.

Voices in the Net

Are you going to the Hampshire Jam next month? Redshift are headlining, who are somehat influenced by Tangerine Dream, as are all the bands there.

Musiczeit

If you fancy climbing a bit of the Tree, there's no better place to start (in my opinion!) than here:



It's an excellent recording of the famous concert in Reims Cathedral in 1974. Supported by Nico, so many folk crammed in there (with more than a suggestion of altered perceptions not necessarily religiously induced) that the physical and psychic damage to the place led to the Catholic church banning them from their premises (to the Anglican benefit).

Their playing is at their spaciest best for this period and is one one my top TD discs. Blogspot is your friend here for an MP3 version, though the lossless Shorten version (which like all of the series comes with the makings for a proper CD) is harder to come by.

Also recommended is Soundmill Navigator:



An odd one this. From a base of the Berlin Philharmonics 1976 recording (disc 6 of The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1), Edgar and Jerome tarted it up in 2000. On the whole, Edgar's wholesale re-working of TD's past is an abomination of the first order, but this works incredibly well - the original is fairly dull by TD's standards of the time.

Brussels 1976 is probably my favourite, it could be subtitled 'Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Dave Gilmour'. Some fantastic guitar playing from Edgar Froese.

Gary & Jamie

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge. The Rheims gig is being downloaded as I write this and I shall look forward to discovering more about the other concerts you describe.

Fantastic guitar work from Edgar? That's a new one for me!

Edgar's guitar playing on 'Coldwater Canyon' from 'Encore' is pretty good.

Not in the league of some guitarists mentioned on the forum, but a lot of feel, and were he not from the 70's he would rate a very good guitarist against some lorded players.

The Tangerine Tree releases were distributed as shm files initially, so are available uncompressed. Just in case it is one of the MP3 downloads that are around now you are getting. Good to sample the releases with though.

An awful lot of care went into producing the releases, and I am quite proud to have contributed to a few of the cover artworks.

Richard have you heard any Redshift? In particular their first album, which is really Mark Shreeve plus a some minor contributions from others. It was referred to by a lot of fans as 'Rubycon 2'. I discovered them when collecting the Tangerine Tree releases and was sent a compilation of bands like Redshift, Free System Projeckt, Fanger & Schonwalder, R.M.I.

The Rheims file was an MP3 so where would I find the other versions?

I have always considered Tangerine Dream to be a group that has often been imitated but rarely bettered. I have listened to some of the people you mentioned and I saw Mark Shreeve live in Milton Keynes during the early 80s. He was OK but I never find myself thinking I ought to re-visit his work. I am listening to Pergamon while I type this; fab!

Mark Shreeve with Redshift is definitely worth trying again, his music since the mid 90's is very different from his 80's fare, much darker and atmospheric.

The complete Berlin 1980 concert (Pergamon) is one of the soundboard releases from the Tangerine Tree, excellent too.

Answering where to get hold of thing like the Tangerine Tree releases is a problem on this forum. I am not sure about the current moderation, but past moderation was very harsh and strongly disapproved of people evening giving each other spare copies of albums they had, let alone distributing such releases, even though they were condoned by the band. Hence my membership having the v2 at the end.

I would suggest searching on Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo Groups and following the links. As there is no private messaging on the forum, if you have other group members emails, you could mail them and ask if they have the emails of those who have contributed to this thread.

If you are in Leeds anytime, you would be very welcome to come over and listen to some of the releases and other bands I mentioned above. We could also talk railways, maybe even at the Leeds model rail show in ten days (plug!).

Hi Guys

Haven't really dipped into the Music Room before but great to get some leads into availability of Tangerine Dream live concerts. I saw them a few times back i the late 70s and they were always outstanding live... what would I give to see the Cyclone tour agan complete with copious dry ice and the Laserium light show - a true assault on the senses.

Just to quibble slightly, personally I would highlight Stratosfear as an outstanding album especially Invisible Limits which, for me, has everything that makes TDream special.

....oh and how can you call Fly and Collision of Comas Solar tuneless

Regards

MartinC

My favourite T-Dream elpees are Electronic Meditation and Atem which I bought in early 70s - they were always unique throughout the 70s and I have about a dozen of their vinyl records - not listened to much post 70s T-Dream.

I did a quick google image search for a couple of covers for the artworks for recordings mentioned in this thread, putting in:

tangerine dream reims 1974

tangerine dream brussels 1976

If you click through the first half dozen results that come up, I am sure you will find at least one website that is very helpful with detailed listings and contacts for the site owner and other websites linked to the Tangerine Tree. Sadly a few are now starting to go offline.

Avoid the music listing/review ones and links to Rapidshare for MP3s.

Good luck.

Jamie