reviews - 00'sPosted by Jacob Pertou Sun, December 20, 2009 16:06:28
1. Picture Palace Music Natatorium (CD-R)The "lost Tangerine Dream masterpiece" from keyboarder Thorsten Quaeschning and company. A tour-de-force from start to finish. Too perfect to be released on a DIY CD-R.
2. Tangerine Dream Vintage Vanguard (CD)
Tangerine Dream the Jerome Froese way. A stunning collection of outtakes, b-sides, instrumental
Inferno and
Purgatorio tracks, and more. The announced
Dream Mixes 5 can't come soon enough.
3. Johannes Schmoelling A Thousand Times (CD)An album that lives up to its title. Hard to shake off, and demands numerous listens. A central instrument is the grand piano. Sequencers are used when they
have to. But it sounds like Johannes prefers to play whatever he can by
hand. So there is a very personal touch to this album, and it includes intelligent hints to TD classics from the 80's.
4. Klaus Schulze La Vie Electronique 2 (3-CD)With lesser equipment, Klaus Schulze was very creative back in the early seventies. Dark and heavy stuff performed on partly damaged equipment.
5. Klaus Schulze La Vie Electronique 1 (3-CD)More of the same classic stuff, albeit recorded a bit earlier.
6. Picture Palace Music Curriculum Vitae I (CD)Includes the mammoth ep
Nostalgia, which was Thorsten Quaeschning's magnum opus prior to
Natatorium.
7. Tangerine Dream The London Eye Concert 2008 (3-CD)What a night. TD performs a wonderful set for three hours in front of the most enthusiastic audience I can remember. The download and dvd versions do not do this concert justice. It's the triple-cd you need.
8. Tangerine Dream plays Edgar Froese The Epsilon Journey (2-CD)Now legendary one-off concert with Edgar Froese solo compositions, on a completely remixed new album. The keyword is 'Journey'.
9. Tangerine Dream Rocking Out The Bats (Download and DVD)The download and the DVD have their respective advantages, but they both bring back memories of a very special Tangerine Dream concert. The DVD has some fine bonus material as well.
10. Jerome Froese The Speed Of Snow (CD EP)
17 minutes of pure euphony. So-called 'guitartronica'.
reviews - 00'sPosted by Jacob Pertou Sat, December 19, 2009 14:50:20
Third time lucky? I don’t think so. Tangerine Dream compilations is a bit of a jungle, since there are so many of them. The
Booster series are worthwhile because they add new material and catch up on non-album tracks.
The third of them is probably my least favourite, because it’s so mellow. There are good tracks which more than justifies this release, like
Mombasa,
Astrophel And Stella (String Version), and in particular
The Halloween Cast. On the other hand, I could do without
Sound Of A Shell, and the overdubbed
Remote Viewing. It has the three best tracks from
Chandra - The Phantom Ferry Part 1, which probably makes me play that album even less.
Booster Vol. II is still the best of the lot, but
Booster III is a good retrospective of 2008 and 2009.
This one is a curious one. It was released by popular demand by the fans on the TD FORUM, and already saw a release for the Christmas trade. That alone is very impressive, but more surprising was it that the sound has been completely remixed.
Originally an artsy-fartsy DVD of a live performance from Eindhoven in 2008, it included a lot of well-earned ovations.
That is all gone now. It's a bit weird, to be honest, but it emphasises the music as a unified whole, and what’ve got is like a completely new album. The loud lead guitar in
One Night In Space has been streamlined to ‘gel’ more with the electronic setup, and the saxophone is not as dominant, either.
The keyword is ‘Journey’, and with this newly released CD, it’s probably easier to enjoy the fantastic portfolio of Edgar Froese compositions. A highly recommended release!
There’s something about Tangerine Dream DVD's that either distracts me from watching them – or even makes me fall asleep. Some of them have been poorly edited, especially in the sound mix where drums often have been completely lost. Other times computer graphics or slow motion sequences have been added, like they almost were there to hide some embarrassing details for the viewer.
And let's face it. Tangerine Dream use a lot of pre-programmed stuff, so to watch the keyboarders in action often gives the impression that they are only playing 10% of what we hear. That reduces the enjoyment of watching a show significantly.
When I play a Tangerine Dream DVD, I rarely sit and down and watch it. I usually do something else in the meantime, and occasionally look at the screen, if I hear a nice solo piece.
The dynamic sound from a DVD – or the fact that I maybe attended the concert – is why I keep buying these releases.
As usual I skipped to the bonus material at first. There are three little films that has a very intelligent twist. In of them, it seems like Linda Spa is impersonating Edgar Froese being interviewed, which is hilarious.
I did spot myself, my aunt and uncle several times on
Rocking Out The Bats and found myself enjoying how convincingly the DVD was edited this time, and in particular, that they cranked up the twang guitar of
Ayumi’s Loom, which was much too quiet in the download version.
Rocking Out The Bats brings back memories from a very special Tangerine Dream concert. I can recommend it to all who attended the show and to other fans, because the set list is very good, and the editing is much, much better than the previous and poorly edited
London Eye Concert.
A signed mini ZOOM-O-GRAPHIC accompanied my order from Eastgate. Very nice!
reviews - 00'sPosted by Jacob Pertou Fri, December 18, 2009 20:50:35
reviews - 00'sPosted by Jacob Pertou Thu, December 03, 2009 21:16:38
TANGERINE DREAM, "Inferno" (TDI Music, 1 stars)
Pioneering electronic music group Tangerine Dream was founded by Edgar Froese
in Berlin in 1967. A trio for most of its existence, the group
underwent numerous personnel changes, but over the last decade settled
down to Froese and his son Jerome.
"Inferno" is an aural ordeal, a patchy synthesizer-and-chorale
work inspired by Dante's poetic masterpiece and recorded live last year
at a cathedral in Bern, Switzerland. At its best ("Before the Closing
of the Day," "Io non mor") it offers penetrating neo-classical airs.
At its worst ("The Spirit of Virgil," "At the Deepest Point in
Space") this is groggy mood music, more pretentious than bad Roger
Waters.
David Hiltbrand
Philadelphia Inquirer, 19th September 2002.
reviews - 00'sPosted by Jacob Pertou Tue, December 01, 2009 22:33:35
Live In London At The Shepherd's Bush Empire 11 June 2005 (Voiceprint VPDVD29)
Distilling 250 hours of recordings into a 167-minute concert, Tangerine Dream
celebrated the 35th anniversary of their classic breakthrough album
Phaedra with this gig at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire last June.
Bathed in blue light and surrounded by banks of synthesizers, Tangerine Dream
are among the least animated of bands and, although the images are thus
somewhat tedious, the multi-layered krautrock, electronic and new age
musical textures sustain interest. The band's only surviving founder
member Edgar Froese has assembled a fine collection of musicians to
interpret his cerebral music though, ironically, the most energetic
piece performed is an incendiary version of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze.
Music Week (May 5, 2007), Page 30
