MACULA TRANSFER

This is the third release by Edgar of his solo recordings after departing from the group TANGERINE DREAM. As with most of the other solo works by EDGAR FROESE the music on MACULA TRASFER is nearly identical to that of the TANGERINE DREAM releases of that time period.Now that may be a good thing or that may be a bad thing,depending on your viewpoint.Most people that like the early TANGERINE DREAM recordings will like the solo releases by EDGAR FROESE. That has a lot to say about his influence on the sound of the band up until his departure.The music has the same analog flow as the early TD releases with the ever present synth drone and with the odd little twists thrown in.It just so happens that I like the droning,repetitive quality of his music and to me,make perfect background music for thinking,reading,meditating or creating!Some of the material on this release turns up on the compilation SOLO 1974 - 1979.

This is my favorite solo-album from Edgar Froese. As a hugh TD fan from the 74-77 era I have to say that this record is a very pleasant addition to the TD albums from that period. Especially the omnipresent Mellotron in combination with the acoustic guitars sound great, it reminds me of "Force majeure" but I prefer "Macula transfer" because the climates are more compelling.

If you like intense mellotron, then you should like this record. There are indeed tons of mellotron here. On the first side, the echoed electric guitar of Edgar Froese gives a solid rhythm to the ensemble. His rhythmic guitar sound is often almost acoustic, distortion free. The keyboards sound like on the "Stratosfear" album (Tangerine dream), but the beat on the second part is more tribal & monotonous. The last song of the first side has this minimal beat that increases gradually in speed, while you hear Froese's basic hard rock electric guitar solos, through bizarre Krautrock voices and keyboards effects: at the end, this beat is fast enough to make you believe that a fictitious machine is about to explode!! Interesting experience!

On the second side, the beat is more sophisticated, and it sounds a bit like his records "Epsilon in Malaysian pale" and "Stuntman". The keyboards are more elaborated on this side. There is a beat-free bit where the floating keyboards sound very despairing, like on the "Zeit" and "Alpha centauri" albums. Compared to record "Stuntman", this side is really less electronically helium boosted.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream frontman) solo career becomes less and less interesting with years. His first "Aqua" is without any doubts his best, followed by his second "Epsylon in Malaysian Pale". I consider "Macula Transfer" as the last recommended album from Froese's essays in solo. After that he progressively orientated his music to very conventional, commercial electronic ambient music. "Macula Transfer" develops a similar style to TD's Virgin era with a great variety of epic spaciousness, including "melancholic", melodic synth waves and hypnotic electronic patterns. "PA 701" starts with an eloquent bass synth lines, accompanied by little detached melodies, then comes a spectral electronic choir after that we can assist to a haunted rhythmical voyage with hallucinatory electronic loops. A very pleasant track and at the level of TD's classic pieces. "Quantas" delivers a dark atmospheric orchestration, a floating soundscape with an enormous spacious sound. "OS 452" is certainly the most original composition, a ravishing electronic painting, featuring guitar echoes, moody repetitive hypno pulses, and electronic choirs. A dreamy & creepy ambience with abundant mellotrons, catchy guitar patterns and discreet wha wha melodies for e-guitar. " IF 810" is one of these boring, almost new agey floating pieces with massive electronic machines. Some really nice immersive ambiences and "cheesy" melodies.

I'm surprised at how low the ratings are for this one.The mellotron is just gorgeous throughout this album. Edgar came up with the inspiration for these songs while on tour with TANGERINE DREAM in 1975 / 76. So he named the songs after the flight numbers. He seemed to be infactuated with travel, and it was while travelling (in this case by plane) where he would come up with these songs.

"OS 452" features some guitar a minute in that reminds me of PINK FLOYD while the mellotron flows in the background. This soundscape continues throughout. The mellotron is otherworldly 4 minutes in. An absolute storm of mellotron 7 minutes in. "AF 765" is spacey to start as the mellotron comes and goes. Moog comes pulsating in with more mellotron. Whispered sounds come and go. Love the guitar that also comes and goes. All of these sounds i've described continue.The tempo picks up until you would think something is going to explode. It stops before 10 minutes though as mellotron ends it.

"PA 701" is eventually dominated by majestic mellotron floods 1 1/2 minutes in. A pulsating beat comes in as mellotron continues. Mellotron choirs dominate the sound before 5 minutes. Some pleasant sounds end it. "Quantas 611" is the only track with no rhythm on it, instead we get waves of mellotron throughout. It becomes sinister sounding before 3 1/2 minutes, but it comes and goes quickly. "IF 810" is lighter as moog pulsates. It sounds like this soundscape gets swallowed up by a vortex 2 1/2 minutes in, but no it returns to end it.

A solid 4 star album that TANGERINE DREAM and mellotron fans should check out.

Apparently, Edgar Froese composed the music on Macula Transfer on plane journeys during Tangerine Dream's tours - the song titles are supposedly the flight numbers the individual pieces were composed on. This is hardly an album of idle scribblings set down to pass the time, however - instead, with his guitar playing more prominent than on Tangerine Dream's concurrent material, Froese creates an intriguing blend of the style of electronic music the band were creating on the one hand and the psychedelic Krautrock of their earlier years on the other. An intriguing piece which I consider to be of markedly more interest than any of Froese's preceding solo albums.

Inspiring flights

3.5 stars

From "Macula Transfer", Edgar Froese will now propose, in his solo albums, material different from what TANGERINE DREAM will be doing. Recorded before "Stratosfear" in summer 1976, this third effort may be the most original from the German pioneer. The compositions are mostly ambient, non-melodic and do not contain many changes. However, it its their strangeness and singularity that make the interest of this disc.

Froese imagined these tracks during five air flights and named them given their corresponding flight number. The sound quality is rather average.

"OS 452" is the best and most original tune of the record. An aerial mysterious tune displaying an ethereal atmosphere, dominated by guitar. On the contrary, the 11 minutes "AF 765" is darker and more synthetic. Featuring mainly distorted guitar soli over a fast short sequence, this composition pre-dates TD's music during their North American tour one year later, especially the "Cherokee Lane" and "Coldwater Canyon" tracks from "Encore". Pleasant, but a bit lengthy.

The electronic loop of "PA 701" is quite futuristic, but unfortunately the music itself is rather lazy. The strange "Quantas 611" displays a somber soundscape similar to "Zeit", while "IF 810" is the only composition with pieces of melody, announcing TD's "Sorcerer" soundtrack as well as Froese's next album, "Ages".

The dry and repetitive nature of the five tracks should not discourage you to board "Macula Transfer". You'll fly over quite unusual and intriguing soundscapes. Don't miss it if you're a TANGERINE DREAM or Edgar Froese fan.

I was wandering around one of my local Eugene, Oregon record stores and was totally blown away to find an original green Brain copy of Macula Transfer. Of all solo Edgar Froese albums, this was the one I had most difficulty getting a hold of. For one thing, before the seriously messed about 2005 version on Eastside, it's only been reissued once, on Manikin Records, but due to legal problems, it quickly went out of print after the 1,000 copies were pressed. I was often perplexed by the rarity, then I discovered Virgin never released this, that's why, of all albums of his later reissued on CD, that one didn't make the grade. I doubt the LP is THAT rare as claimed (I'm sure way more than a 1,000 copies of the LP were pressed, but only a 1,000 copies of the Manikin CD reissue was pressed), although I imagine copies to turn up from time to time in Germany, after all it did appear to remain in print into the 1980s, starting with the original green label, then the orange label (end of '76 until 1981), and then the black label, circa 1981. It would obviously be rare elsewhere given it was released nowhere else.

Anyways, Macula Transfer was his third solo album, and the theme was on flight. Each song title is actually an airline flight number. While QUANTAS (actually QANTAS) is a bit obvious, the others aren't: OS is Austrian Airlines, AF is Air France, PA is Pan-Am, and IF is Interflug. If that last one is not familiar to you, it was the East German state-ran airline company that went defunct after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So each song was apparently written while on said flight, probably to another Tangerine Dream concert. OS 452 reminds me a whole lot of Manuel Gottsching's Inventions for Electric Guitar had Mellotron been added on. It's as if Froese got a hold of that album and wondered how it would be like with Mellotron! "AT 765" has the ping-pong synth thing going on with tron and Elka Rhapsody chords going on, I really like how it picks up at the end. "PA 701" sounds very familiar! It sounds exactly like a blueprint for "Thru Metamorphic Rocks" off Force Majeure. It has that same sequencer synth patter and synth sound, but the Mellotron arrangements are totally different. Now I know who handled the sequencers on "Thru Metamorphic Rocks"! "QANTAS 611" is a rather eerie, Mellotron dominated number that gives reminders of the earlier TD stuff. "IF 810" is the closing piece, with that pulsing synth rhythm, Elka Rhapsody and Mellotron. For fans of the Mellotron, this is an essential purchase, Froese just goes bonkers on this instrument, making sure you hear it, and it's used on every cut. This album is not a continuation of Epsilon in Malaysian Pale. It doesn't have that calm, often tranquil feel that album has. This one is more aggressive, with guitar more dominating (in fact it's probably the most guitar-dominated thing I've heard off Froese outside of Electronic Meditation, but unlike Electronic Meditation, which is basically a good old fashioned psychedelic Krautrock album, Macula Transfer is still undeniably electronic). To many Macula Transfer may not be the best thing he's did, some probably would feel it sounded more like a incomplete demo, but the way it sounds is he's used to two other guys helping him out and forget that's not what's happening here (Klaus Schulze, on the other hand never had that problem, so his recordings always sounded more full and complete). Still I very much enjoy Macula Transfer. The Mellotron work is simply insane and to die for. It's as if he had free reign on the Mellotron because Peter Baumann and Chris Franke isn't holding him back.

For me, this is another great album worth having, not entirely sure it makes the five star grade, though, but worth it.

'For me one of the highlights in electronic music!'

1. OS 452 (7:56) : The start of this album is very compelling and top notch electronic music featuring a hypnotizing beat, soaring Mellotron violins and choirs, beeps and bleeps and wah wah with echo, a very lush and varied sound for an electronic album.

2. AF 765 (11:04) : A pumping sequencer is blended with Mellotron drops and synthesizer flights. Then fiery electric guitar runs with a distorted sound, as Edgar did on the legendary Encore live album from Tangerine Dream, powerful and exciting. Voices and synthesizer loops embellish the music. The final part delivers an accellaration featuring electric guitar and an ominous synthesizer sound, what a perfect musical translation of becoming mad!

3. PA 701 (7:36) : First soaring strings and slow distored synthesizer flights. Then the atmosphere turns into a kind of electronic version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, very special, to say the least. Now a flood of Mellotron choirs that sounds as a real treat, what a breathtaking climate, blended with pulsating sequencers , goose bumps. The final part is very dreamy with a Mellotron flute and the sound of the sea, slowly fading away.

4. Quantas 611 (4:58) : This hypnotizing composition contains a distinctive electronic music aural landscape: spacey sounds and mellow synthesizer work, a bit ominous. The music developes into a captivating contrast between the sound of high strings and fat synthesizer layers.

5. IF 810 (4:26) : The final track starts with a catchy mid-tempo beat and cheerful synthesizer runs, legendary J-M Jarre comes to my mind. Then the majestic sound of Mellotron violins and finally fat and propulsive synthesizer sounds and lush Mellotron and synthesizer work, wonderful electronic music!

The material on this album from 1976 is composed by Edgar Froese (who died January 20th in 2015) during flights in 1975 and 1976 (the track titles are flight numbers), and it was recorded in Berlin. The cover pictures are by artist and photographer Monique Froese (Edgar his wife until she passed away in 2000) and the 'ghost of Chopin' is mentioned in the credits. This info is from my album version: Manikin Records mrcd7030 lc 3230.

It has been a personal dilemma for me to find out why Edgar Froese without TD does not tickle my fancy. (And I´ve tried & I´ve tried...)

Edgar Froese- Macula Transfer (1976) has shown me why.

Even though Mr. Froese was and would be a notable figure in the electronic music fields, he tended to get stuck in his magnificent skills once he had to carry the whole burden not only of the machines he loved but of all the music structures.

He, as this album clearly shows, was a mastermind of creative electronic ideas and electronic instruments combinations & riffs which up to today could properly be called "trademark sounds". Yet on the long run these creative sparks tend to go in circles as if looking for something which could trigger their development and transformation but this rarely happens, opposite to that the music once it has reached its self impossed peak becomes cinematic (or over the top to put it otherwise) and then is when Mr. Froese feels at ease.

He, as the future will show, became a very sought film makers choice for their soundtracks, he had it in him this music/movie spirit.

I who rarely enjoy these cinematic/epic or tragic figures in any kind of music could hardly enjoy this as I do the "uncinematic", deeply cerebral and abstractly emotional Tangerine Dream of that same decade.

***3 PA´s stars.