GREEN DESERT

Green Desert is a Tangerine Dream album that began in 1973 when Peter Baumann had departed for Berlin on a journey to Nepal and India, reducing the trio to the duo of Edgar Froese and Chris Franke. In London Virgin Records noticed the popularity of TD and decided to sign them up record Green Desert in Skyline Studios, Berlin. In the studio the duo utilised a rhythm controller, phaser and synthesizers. Chris Franke recalls in an interview: "The rhythm controller came from Italy and looked like something from science fiction with its console of 128 buttons which all lit up. It could be programmed, it was analogue and it was polyphonic! The lights blinked, I had hands on control and later I used it as a sequencer to trigger other synthesisers."

Peter Baumann eventually returned but the album was incomplete, but TD had begun to record Phaedra by this time. It was not until 1984 that Edgar Froese found Green Desert material lurking in the TD archives and it was decided that these tracks in their raw form would be reworked to create the next album release. The remix included sounds from the mid-80's with a more melodic flavour and with a lot more percussion, the drums were prominent and it does not have an early 70s sound for these reasons. It took till 1986 before an album release came to fruition and it was released as a part of the set In The Beginning. The result is an album with a very unique style opening with a drone synth and some impressive drumming that is something different for TD, many of their albums being free from drums. I particularly love the drumming on the album, being a drummer myself I can appreciate the complexity and dynamic rhythmic meters. Towards the end of the title track there is a beautiful wash of synths and some wave sounds generating a soothing atmosphere; one may be reminded of Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene. It is a 19 and a half minute epic that is absolutely mesmirising.

After this fantastic start to the album drums open White Clouds and a synth with spacey textures and swirling crescendos. The drums are frenetic and the melodic synth lines are absolutely beautiful. This is a more positive sound for the band with uplifting sounds and some deliriously hypnotic chord progressions. The synth swishes and bird calls are an excellent augmentation, but again those drum rhythms are so African sounding and rhythm-centric it is a delight to listen to.

Astral Voyager follows with bass synth lines and a motoring beat reminding me of Rubycon or Ricochet in places. Indian Summer is the closing track and this time is replete with synth swells and very atmospheric spacey sounds. there is no beat and it kind of hypnotises with organic splashes of keyboard chords. Overall this is a solid release from the Tangs, quite different in many ways, with some mesmirising beauty scattered throughout, and definitely worthy of being in your TD collection.