RUBYCON

The record is divided into two suites corresponding to the two sides of the album. Each suite is completely instrumental and based on piano and electronic keyboards of various types (organ, synths, rhodes). Percussion (rhythm) and guitar are almost completely missing.

The arrangement: - Edgar Froese plays Mellotron, EMS Synthi A and VCS3 synthesizers, organ, guitar, gong

- Christoph Franke plays prepared piano, Moog and Synthi A synths, organs (modified Elka tr. 1), gong

- Peter Baumann plays organ, prepared piano, Fender Rhodes, EMS Synthi A and ARP 2600 synths.

The melody is also almost completely missing, and not because the music is atonal, but because it is all based on the tonality, without ever reaching a complete melody. In short, it is atmospheric music, which anticipates ambient and new age music. It is a music that in my opinion has nothing to do with rock and therefore also with progressive rock, since it requires a different listening, but I understand that it has been inserted in PA because it is a music without borders, which goes beyond the canons of genres, and it is in fact characterized not at the compositional level, but at the timbre: it is electronic music.

In my opinion this type of music plays on a too minimalist level to be considered on the same level as prog masterpieces: lacking melody and harmony, compositionally it is not comparable to the best of progressive rock. It could be comparable to movie music or new age music for meditation exercises. In fact, being based on improvisation, it requires a listening more similar to pure jazz, and in fact a lot of jazz is also present on Progarchives (and I do not fully agree with this choice, because for example Miles Davis started before progressive: or is it him the prog pioneer or did something else).

Anyway, towards 9 minutes, however, the music becomes denser, the keyboards paint an increasingly obsessive background percussive rhythm, above which improvisations of other keyboards rise: we are close to a melody that flows on a certain rhythm, to music closer to rock. Undoubtedly the musicians are very competent. You can almost talk about rhythmic progression, but then the piece goes towards a slow fading. For the year it was released, Rubycon was certainly an innovative record, even if it was preceded by many others records by Tangerine Dream. At the end of side A there is a melody played by an instrument that simulates the timbre of the oboe.

Rubycon Part 1 (17:18): rating 7,5.

In the second suite, which starts with catacomb sounds, it seems to hear the cries of the damned of Hell, undoubtedly it would be a nice soundtrack for a horror or thriller film. Then the "artificially synthesized" screams give way to a percussive keyboard that anticipates the cybernetic music of any new wave. There is no doubt that Tangerine Drema was a seminal group, which anticipated, sowed the seeds of so much music to come. The piece is more lively, I would say violent, compared to the first part, then the music stops around 12 minutes, giving way to noises of nature but then around 15 it switches to hallucinated, almost psychedelic noises and then closes with a slow, calm .

Second part better than the first. Vote 8.

Overall score of the album: 8. Three and a half stars.

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