TANGERINE DREAM
Anyone who takes a serious look at the history of electronic music, will, at some point, come across Tangerine Dream. Formed in 1967, they were one of the bands that undeniably helped steer music towards its experimental, electronic future.
In the late-60s and early-70s, there were several, shifting line-ups, but everything seemed to pivot around the band’s driving force and ‘frontman’, the late Edgar Froese. They enjoyed underground success with albums like Electronic Meditation (1970; recorded by Froese, Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler) and Atem (1973; this was the second album to feature what is widely regarded at the classic line-up of Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann), which John Peel made Album of the Year.
Their music also caught the attention of a young British hippy called Richard Branson, who’d recently set up his Virgin record label. Virgin had just signed Mike Oldfield and was about to enjoy worldwide success with his debut album, Tubular Bells. Tangerine Dream had found their spiritual home!
The deal with Virgin allowed them to make maximum impact on what was still a fledgling electronic music scene, and the period between 1973 and 1979 became known as TD’s ‘Virgin Years’. Remarkably, the band’s first album for Virgin, 1974’s Phaedra, made the UK Top 20, rubbing shoulders with the likes of The Carpenters and the Bay City Rollers!
It’s this era that has been chronicled and celebrated by the recently released and rather lavish 16 CD/2
