CANYON DREAMS (OST)

'Canyon Dreams' is the 30th album from Tangerine Dream. It was released in 1991, but was actually recorded in 1986 as a soundtrack to a film about the Grand Canyon. Since there was a bootleg of the music that had been taken from the video, TD released it with longer run times, adding some material to the original recording. Also, since it was recorded in 1986, Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke were the main musicians as was typical of TD's albums from this period. They are joined by Paul Haslinger on this album who was also with TD for 5 years during this time.

This album combines the electronic sound that TD was famous for with native American influences, utilizing pan flute and other effects to give it this style. The album also won a Grammy nomination and was the first TD album to do so. The southwestern influences on the music are quite upfront on most of the songs and there is also a very expansive feeling apparent on the tracks. There is also less of the outdated 80s sound on this. It sounds very heartfelt and authentic to the material from the film.

'Shadow Flyer' and 'Canyon Carver' are both fairly upbeat tracks with some nice effects and melodies. They both stay quite simple as far as melody goes, but the layers of sound are full and beautiful. 'Water's Gift' has a definite Native American sound to it with the addition of many more traditional effects. The track has no percussion and is a lot slower and pensive, invoking that feeling of a huge expanse in its lovely atmospheric passages. 'Canyon Voices' has a more cinematic vibe to it, but is also more electronic sounding, it also has no percussion, but moves along more melodically than the previous track.

'Sudden Revelation' returns to the pensive feel with a slow melody and an ebb and flow style like a breeze blowing through the miles of desert sand. 'A Matter of Time' is the longest track at over 8 minutes. It starts moving slowly as it is in no hurry, signifying the eroding of the land by water over many millions of years. At 2 minutes, a quick running arpeggio hurries the track along quicker, but the melody is in no hurry. This is the type of TD track that I love, no percussion and rhythm is marked by melody and not electronic percussion. The track is quite beautiful, but so are all of the tracks on this album. 'Purple Nightfall' is quite minimal and slow, but it is relatively short. 'Colorado Dawn' was added to the soundtrack to add another track not on the bootleg and was written by Jerome Froese. In 1999, the album was reissued with an additional track called 'Rocky Mountain Hawk' which continues in the fashion of most of the music on this soundtrack and is a worthwhile track.

This is one of Tangerine Dream's best albums, especially from this period as many of their albums during that time sound somewhat dated, and have an overabundance of electronic percussion. That is not the case with this album which, even though it is obviously electronic, has a more organic and realistic feel to it. My preference as far as TD goes is the more thoughtful albums, and this is definitely one of those.