PHAEDRA

My first TD album and it took me some time to see its greatness. Brian eno gave ambient music its name, but TD pioneered the sound. The group formed in Berlin in 1967, their leader founder and only constant member being guitarist Edgar Froese. Inspired by surrealism and the dadaist art movement, he had worked with Salvador Dali and opened for Jimi Hendrix. Other palyers came and went, leading to a german label debut in 1970. Electronic meditation was one of the earliest examples of krautrock: a minimalist, experiemental work utilizing household objects alongside standard rock instruments. Syntheizers came to the fore on Alpha Centauri 1971, three years before Kraftwerk fully embraced them-and the classic TD lineup of Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann was in place for double LP Zeit. Influential british DJ John Peel declared 1973's Atem to be his album of the year, earning the space music innovators a major contract with Virgin Records. Virgin debut Phaedra was a commercial and stylistic landmark. The trios used Moog and sequencers for the first time, enabling thire vast instrumental soundscapes to be composed rather then improvised. The title track is a quasi-symphonic constellation of hypnotic burbling, celestial textures, and pulsating bassline. "Movements of a Visionary" involves whispers and arpeggiated tone clusters, while "Mysterious semblance at the strand of nightmares" features luminescent keyboard washes that evoke the ocean as much as the cosmos. The ending "Sequent C'" is a short spooky track that always makes me think of aliens or something sinister lurking. Phaedra cracked the UK top 20 and made No. 196 in America. It remains essential lisening for fans of electronic music-a mesmeric precursor to trance, techno, and the dance music of the future. 5 stars to this groundbreaking masterpice of elelctronica.