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Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation CD (album) cover

ELECTRONIC MEDITATION

Tangerine Dream

 

Progressive Electronic

3.32 | 366 ratings

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Eetu Pellonpaa
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars Behold, the first official long player presenting the pioneering cosmic sounds of this electronic krautrock band. Their innovative and abstract approach developed from their more conventional mid-1960's group named The One, and the directions for their musical expressionism were explored at the live concerts later that decade. I think that the main innovators here are Pink Floyd's "Saucerful of Secrets" suite and the fuzzy acid rock textures of early The Jimi Hendrix Experience recordings, these heard sounds developed further in innovative minds and recorded with trashy style similar to early Amon Düül recordings. The aural aesthetics build up from fuzzy, electronically treated analog sounds and percussions, creating thick and dreamlike sonar passages. Unfretted bow-played instruments bring a dose of atonality to the slowly morphing chaos, and fast lines of flute and the drums tie the music closer to the more conventional 1970's rock's frame of reference.

The keyboard chords of "Journey Through A Burning Brain" make up a celestial moment similar to the end sequence of Pink Floyd's tune mentioned before, also appearing in their "Cirrus Minor" coda, which starts to build up tension and reaching very raw sounding trance climax sounding the forthcoming Ash Ra Tempel recordings. A key member of that group, Klaus Schulze is here playing on drums, before venturing to that music group and focusing to synthesizers, creating a legacy of its own from that trait. The solemn pillars of sounds erected by the organ chords also close this second track of this album, circled by a flute flickering like a butterfly amidst their shade. "Cold Smoke" (Interstellar gases?) starts in avant-garde style shifting from subtle sounds as loud crashes and disturbing noises, later introducing drum sequence also resembling again Pink Floyd's "Saucerful of Secrets" drum movement. This starts to build up more chaotic jam in vein of Jimi Hendrix's song "I Don't Live Today". The escalation breaks to exhausted breathing sounds. "Ashes to Ashes" is a bluesy acid rocker with brutal elektronik noizes starting up interestingly, but is sadly faded out during the great gonzo jamming yet on the process of evolvement. The closing number "Resurrection" returns once more to the solemn organ chords, with backwards treated vocals, then returning to the album opener sounds, creating a circular form for the album with singular point for both beginning and the end.

This record evidently influenced heavily early Ash Ra Tempel who released their first album in 1971, so all who like either of these phases of these bands should check out the other one too. Certainly recommended as for background music for the first dates too.

Eetu Pellonpaa | 4/5 |

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