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WAVELENGTH (OST)

Tangerine Dream

Progressive Electronic


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Tangerine Dream Wavelength (OST) album cover
2.74 | 66 ratings | 6 reviews | 11% 5 stars

Good, but non-essential

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Studio Album, released in 1983

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Alien Voices (0:16)
2. Wavelength Main Title (1:54)
3. Desert Drive (Quichotte Part One excerpt) (2:00)
4. Mojave End Title (3:59)
5. Healing (2:23)
6. Breakout (1:09)
7. Alien Goodbyes (1:50)
8. Spaceship (2:18)
9. Church Theme (3:41)
10. Sunset Drive (3:23)
11. Airshaft (3:10)
12. Alley Walk (2:55)
13. Cyro Lab (2:13)
14. Running Through The Hills (1:30)
15. Campfire Theme (1:23)
16. Mojave End Title Reprise (3:51)

Total time: 37:55

Line-up / Musicians

- Edgar Froese / ?
- Chris Franke/ ?
- Johannes Schmoelling / ?

Note: The actual instrumentation is not available at this moment

Releases information

Soundtrack for the Mike Gray's film "Wavelength". Many of the tracks are remixes from other albums.

LP Varèse Sarabande ‎- STV 81207 (1983, US)

CD Varèse Sarabande ‎- VCD 47223 (1983, US)

Thanks to Ricochet for the addition
and to Quinino for the last updates
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TANGERINE DREAM Wavelength (OST) ratings distribution


2.74
(66 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(11%)
11%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(9%)
9%
Good, but non-essential (45%)
45%
Collectors/fans only (27%)
27%
Poor. Only for completionists (8%)
8%

TANGERINE DREAM Wavelength (OST) reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by greenback
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars This is a good movie soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. This soundtrack movie has short songs that quite sound like the albums Tangram, White Eagle and Logos. Actually, they took some excerpts from other studio albums, like "Thru metamorphic rocks (Force majeure)" on "Thief" and the piano intro + a substantial development on the Pergamon album; there is also practically a copy of the beat of "Convention of the 24" (White eagle). Nevertheless, there are some new songs that are not bad, despite a bit diluted and very short; so, globally, if you like the Tangerine Dream's sound of the early 80's featuring Johannes Schmoelling, then should should at least slightly enjoy some tracks on this record. There are unfortunately many variations on the same theme.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review by Peter
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars In general, most of the many Tangerine Dream soundtracks work better as spooky/spacey background music for films, than they do as stand-alone albums. (This is hardly surprising, given their raison d'être.) There are exceptions (SORCERER and THIEF make pretty good additions to a fan's collection), but as a rule, individual tracks are often shorter, with abrupt fadeouts which tend to give the soundtracks a somewhat jarring feel overall. Just as you might start to get into the mood of a selection, it fades quickly away after a mere one to two-minute stay.

This disjointed character is also much the case with WAVELENGTH, the soundtrack from an obscure 1983 science fiction film about aliens stranded in the Mojave Desert. The music itself is worthwhile; it's typical mid-period TD from the Froese, Franke and Schmoelling lineup, but with 16 tracks, many are simply too short to establish the ambiance that the synth band's longer selections so ably convey. There's also a smattering of material lifted or re-created from then-recent studio works, so not everything you'll hear will be new. I can't be bothered doing the "forensic" work needed to identify specific source albums and tracks, but serious fans will recognize the exhumed material when they hear it.

Still, WAVELENGTH has just enough new and interesting material to make it worth adding to the collection of the committed TD follower. Sometime fans or those new to the band, however, would do better with one of the many excellent classic studio albums from the 70s to early 80s.

Review by octopus-4
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
2 stars It's not that the music in this album is bad. If you look at each single track, except for the "whale stuff" of the first 20 seconds, they are good enough, but the music of Tangerine Dream needs more time to develop and compressing the ideas in 3 or 4 minutes makes this album sound as incomplete.

My impression, without having seen the movie, is of pieces of tapes taken from studio reharsals and transformed into tracks with titles. A patchwork, in few words.

It's nothing more than a collector's item, good for those who want to have all of Tangerine Dream (that's a very hard challenge if you include lives and soundtracks). Newbies and curiouses, please check out Phaedra or Ricochet, first.

Review by Aussie-Byrd-Brother
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Tangerine Dream's `Wavelength' is the soundtrack to an obscure Robert Carradine sci-fi film from 1983 (not currently available on DVD or Bluray, but it can be viewed on Youtube), and while it offered nothing truly fresh or groundbreaking from the band, it's still makes for a fine background listen while offering several variations of spacey/electronic ambience. Composed by the trio of Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Johannes Schmoelling, considering the albums around it such as `Hyperborea', `White Eagle' etc, `Wavelength' still features the ghostly Melloton, as well as having a distinct mid-70's TD period sound instead of the cold plastic 80's that was emerging during that time. It's mostly comprised of short little interludes and snippets which unfortunately means that many of the tracks rarely get time to develop better, and some sections are reworked pieces from previous albums, but generally if you let the album play in it's entirety, it makes for an undemanding listen of eerie electronic music, and it's certainly far from being one of the worst releases in the band's long discography.

The opening `Main Theme' is a spooky plodding electronic pulse where you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd put an album by Italian horror soundtrack supremos Goblin on the turntable instead! `Desert Drive' is a lovely electric piano balled over positive synths that could have easily been included on the `Tangram' LP. `Mojave End Title' is a racing up-tempo synth-pop burst and is probably the most fully realised piece here. There's little traces of the old Mellotron magic on the droning ambient `Healing', skittering almost dance-like beats on the frantic interlude `Breakout', and the staccato acoustic guitar strums over phasing gently sorrowful synths on `Alien Goodbyes' has a somewhat mournful Pink Floyd quality to it. Deep space hostile alien menace pervades `Spaceship', a cold robotic beat chatters away in the background over imposing synths.

Shimmering synths and restrained Moog trills offer a reflective and meditative tone to side B's `Church Theme' that gradually grows in urgency. `Sunset Drive' has a plodding other-worldly heartbeat loop over stirring restrained Mellotron flutes, slightly dark distortion blows and airy synth soloing drifting around the background. `Airshaft' is a menacing sound-collage, whipping distorted synth lashes, violating electronic distortion and harsh percussive blasts sounding like a fractured nightmare. `Alley Walk' is a soothing respite in comparison, gentle chiming electric piano , like tiny little footsteps and a softly groaning Mellotron choir. `Cryolab' is a lonely downbeat synth drone, `Running Through The Hills' has a nice creeping beat over psychedelic electronics, there's warm placid synth washes throughout `Campfire Theme', and `Mojave End Title Reprise' is exactly what the title says.

Tangerine Dream would offer better soundtrack works (`Sorcerer' and `Firestarter' being particularly impressive), but this is still worth looking into. I actually really enjoy it purely for the fact that it is completely devoid of blatant electric guitar soloing, one thing I always disliked on their studio albums (pretty much from `Force Majeure' onwards if I recall), which I feel made their music a little too obvious and a bit lazy. In the end, `Wavelength' is completely inessential, but a pleasing listen all the same, as well as a perfectly reliable addition to Tangerine Dream collections for more forgiving fans.

Three stars.

Review by Modrigue
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars "Wavelength" is a little-known Sci-Fi 1983 movie. The soundtrack is an assembly of various short melodic tunes, whose duration varies from 1 to 4 minutes. The music itself features mainly compositions unreleased in studio albums. Only synth sequencer passages from their recent albums are borrowed, however with different melodies than the studio originals.

The best passage of the disc is "Mojave End". A catchy tune with sound and style similar to "Mojave Plan" from "White Eagle", but entirely new. The other tracks displays various ambiances: slow, dynamic, spacey, intriguing... For example, "Breakout" re-uses sounds from "Convention of the 24", but is more dynamic. Transitions may sometimes be a little abrupt, but there is no real weak track on the record.

One of TANGERINE DREAM's best soundtracks from this period. The band succeeded at composing mostly new material. Fans of the Schmoelling-era of the band can give this record a try.

Review by VianaProghead
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Review Nº 93

Tangerine Dream was formed in Berlin by guitarist Edgar Froese, percussionist Klaus Schulze and keyboardist Conrad Schnitzler. They were among the earliest conscious explorers of a new musical universe opened by electronic instruments. Tangerine Dream's music was born as a psychedelic journey in the heavens, and, aided by the new electronic keyboards, transformed into a contemplative survey of the universe. By borrowing from impressionistic painting, from ecclesiastic music, from the minimalist avant-garde, and from Eastern transcendental philosophy, Tangerine Dream invented "kosmische music", one of the most progressive influential genres of all times.

After the release of their debut album "Electronic Meditation", in 1970, by the three original members and the release of "Alpha Centauri" without Schulze and Schnitzler but already with Christoph Franke, in 1971, which defined the genre, Froese, Franke and Peter Baumann released "Zeit" in 1972, one of the most important albums of the time. "Zeit" is a four-movement symphony which adopted a more electronic format and a looser concept of rhythm. With "Atem", in 1973, perhaps their most formally accomplished album, they turned to a less intimidating vision of the cosmos, one that led to the lighter, baroque and melodic approach of "Phaedra", in 1974, "Rubycon" in 1975, "Stratosfear" and "Ricochet", in 1976 and "Encore" in 1977. After two more studio albums, "Cyclone", in 1978 and "Force Majeure", in 1979, this time without Bauman, it begins the new-age sound of the 80's, when Froese and Franke were joined by Johannes Schmoelling in 1980. It was in the Schmoelling era that Tangerine Dream released "Wavelength".

"Wavelength" is the fourth soundtrack album and the twentieth overall album by the German band Tangerine Dream and was released in 1983. The line up on the album is Edgar Froese (keyboards, guitar and bass), Christoph Franke (synthesizers and percussion) and Johannes Schmoelling (synthesizers and keyboards).

"Wavelength" is the soundtrack for the 1983 low-budget independent science fiction film written and directed by Mike Gray and starring Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie and Keenan Wynn. The story of the film is very simple and is set in the Hollywood Hills and the Mojave Desert and involves a young couple who discover childlike aliens being held by the U.S. government for experimentation in an underground bunker. Sincerely, I never had the opportunity of see the film.

Within the 80's, between the years 1983 and 1989, Tangerine Dream will produce more than 15 movie soundtracks. Some were really great. Others were fair and or nastily bad. Soundtrack meant shorter tracks and a commercial bend that will sign the halt of making longer evolutionary tracks with these legendary turns of structures so dear to the psychedelic/electronic years for the hard fans of Tangerine Dream. With hindsight, we notice that "Sphinx Lightning" of "Hyperborea" will be the last long track in studio made by the Froese group.

"Wavelength" is among the good soundtracks from Tangerine Dream. Mostly unknown from a wider audience, it literally surfs on the waves of some of their good albums like "Sorcerer", "Thief" and "White Eagle" only to name a few of them. But the material recorded on it isn't properly what we can call new music. It's a kind of a musical mosaic made of bits and pieces picked here and there from these albums, moulding thus an interesting futuristic soundtrack. Each of these small jewels that forge "Wavelength" will bring you at the doors of classical works from Franke, Froese and Schmoelling. Titles like "Desert Drive", "Healing" and "Spaceship" come from the "Quichotte", "Pergamon" and "Tangram" era, whereas that "Church Theme" and "Sunset Drive" are alternate versions of "Silver Scale" and "Remote Viewing". But there are still some interesting fresh ideas behind "Wavelength". Titles like "Wavelength Main Title", "Breakout", "Alien Goodbyes" and "Spaceship" bring reminiscences of "Force Majeure" or "Thief" while that "Mojave End Title" has that little something which ties it to the numerous classics of the band. It's a great track with a lively and catchy harmonic beat. I really don't think that "Wavelength" is an inescapable work but it has its own charms.

Conclusion: I think that, unfortunately, "Wavelength" is out of print. This album combines the musicality of the 70's with the technology of the 80's, and although at times fresher than the other Tangerine Dream plates early 80's. Both, the then new material as well as the new motives can impress yet. I do believe that it's a nice compilation of different musical visions of titles already known with some nice new music which has the unique signature of Tangerine Dream. This is why I think that it's a good soundtrack which really sticks to the idea of a futuristic invasion of aliens on a music that will always be a source of remembering. Who likes Tangerine Dream from the late 70's and even "Exit" or "Tangram" surely finds "Wavelength" acceptable. It remains next to "Sorcerer" and "Legend" as one of the best soundtracks of Tangerine Dream, and thus to be recommended as a good plate of the trio for all who are interested.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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