Country: West Germany
Running time: 34 mins. 55 secs.
Spotify link (Part 1)
Spotify link (Part 2)
YouTube link
In addition to Mike Oldfield, whose best work I just discussed, another emerging talent from the mid-1970's who was initially labelled as belonging to the progressive rock field, was the West German electronica group Tangerine Dream. Their output, like Oldfield's, was disqualified from the top 20 long prog masterpieces list so, as a sort of a goodwill gesture, I am recommending their work among the very first choices in the new article series.
The reason that, at the time, artists like Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield were classified as prog makers, was of course that no one had the benefit of hindsight in the 70's. Both artists differed radically from the rock'n roll norm, just like prog artists did, and as a result, they were all labelled as representants of the same genre. In a way, this is in fact true. Both Oldfield's and Tangerine Dream's music was truly opening new paths towards until then uncharted territories in the field of popular music. But now, looking back, it is easy to see that their routes took them to very different destinations than, say, Yes or Genesis, and also using different methods.
Rubycon is Tangerine Dream's sixth album and their second to a major label - said major label being Virgin, sames as Oldfield's. Before its release, The West German group had been active for nearly eight years, and undergone several lineup changes. Even well known electronic music wizard Klaus Schulze was a member in 1969 and 1970, and performed on the group's debut album Electronic Meditation (1969).
But the true leader of the group has always been Edgar Froese, who was already there when the band was formed in West Berlin of 1967, and who continues to be the only founding member to have remained with the group. Tangerine Dreams's second and third albums, Alpha Centauri (1971) and Zeit (1972) continued to build their reputation as some of the most important members of the Krautrock movement, but it wasn't until their fourth album Atem (1973) that they made an international breakthrough.
Atem received some rave reviews also abroad, most importantly in the U.K. where Richard Branson saw the group's immense potential and signed them on to Virgin Records. As a result, they released their most higly praised recording, Phaedra (1974). And this is once again the point where I must part ways with the general opinion. While I cannot deny the undeniable power of Phaedra, I have never liked it best in Tangerine Dream's discography. It feels too sterile and distant to me. I have always preferred the next effort Rubycon, which to my mind is the only Tangerine Dream album that you absolutely must own - if you want to own any of them, that is.
Rubycon constists of two parts, one on each side of the vinyl release, each clocking just over 17 minutes, and is a masterpiece of early electronic ambient music. It is the pinnacle of the group's output: they had matured enough to produce truly memorable melodies and sound effects with the virtually pre-historic equipment they had available at the time, and still the end result is relatively easy to access, unlike Phaedra.
Tangerine Dream's "golden era" that had begun with Atem continued a couple of recordings onward - Ricochet (also 1975), Stratosfear (1976), Sorcerer (1977) - after which the quality of their music started to deteriorate. It was around the same time that the only other genius besides Froese in the group, Peter Baumann, departed and thus left a hole in the lineup that no successor was ever able to fill. By the early 1980's, half of the group's output had started sounding like elevator music; by the end of the 1980's, all of it did. The contract with Virgin expired, strangely enough, following the release of their best album in many years: Hyperborea (1983).
Tangerine Dream still exists in some form, but I would strongly urge not to seek out its recent output. Instead, simply concentrate on their 1970's recordings. In the 1980's, their most memorable works have been the already mentioned Hyperborea; the title tracks of both White Eagle (1982) and Underwater Sunlight (1986); and any film soundtracks they made during that decade. The rest is for completists only.
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