Esoteric (label)
25 November 2022 (released)
04 January 2023
Tangerine Dream were incredibly active between 1976 and 1983 – the period that this box set covers – with changes in lineup seemingly from tour to tour (and sometimes even during a tour) but always based around the core of Edgar Froese and Chris Franke. The variety of musicians meant that ‘The Dream’ were always changing, and always presenting a different sound, especially as their concerts were highly improvised.
The set here includes music from five different concerts starting in Nottingham on November 8th 1976 and Washington in April ’77 (these two featuring Froese, Franke & Peter Baumann). 1978 was from Hamburg and featured Steve Joliffe on flute and vocals along with Klaus Krieger on drums.
1981 sees them in Newcastle City Hall and featured Johannes Schmelling and this lineup were still together to perform a memorial concert to Werner Rainer Fassbinder from Frankfurt.
Musically, all the standard Tangerine Dream elements are there. Layers of sound with strong rhythms and guitar parts interwoven with the massed synths. Mesmeric and exciting all at once and deeply stirring as well.
The seven discs here feature music that has not been available for some time, all remastered and sounding quite brilliant. I remember some early releases of this material and the remastering seems to have uncovered some dynamic range and some ‘top end’ that just wasn’t there before.
