PHAEDRA

Phaedra is one of Tangerine Dream's best-known records, and not surprisingly so. They were one of the major pioneers of electronic music, along with Jarre, Kraftwerk, and Vangelis, though this album is much more ambient than the ones made by those artists.

The title track is a cosmic, psychedelic masterpiece. A sequencer gives order and direction, as electronic noises soar freely in the background. This type of music can create many different feelings, depending on the person, the situation, and what happens to be in their blood at the time- it can be frightening, or peaceful, or meditative, all depending on how you look at it. After about ten minutes, the sequencer noises fade into nothingness, and empty, echoing noise that seems to be from another world rattles around in the void, until it is filled with gentle synthesizer noise.

The second side, however, does a bit less for me. Mysterious Semblance seems like not much more than a ten-minute mellotron workout, which isn't really bad, but not exactly great either. Movements of a Visionary picks things up again, making a dark, ominous track that feels like the cold, lifeless void of space. Finally, Sequent C is a short, flute-led song, evoking a peaceful, pastoral feel.

Phaedra's title track is a long ambient electronic masterpiece, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, of trips to outer space and the inner realms. So, despite some less than amazing stuff on the second side, I'll give Phaedra four stars, rounded up from about 3.75. Recommended to fans of ambient, chill-out type music and spacey music.