SPRINGTIME IN NAGASAKI

From the Mid Eighties onwards Tangerine Dream lost their way and wallowed in album after album of MOR, predictable and repetitive quasi soundtrack territory.Frankly, I stopped listening to them.

Springtime in Nagasaki has been a breath of fresh air; at alst a real Tangerine Dream Album. The opening bars are not to prmising and sounds all to like the bad old days of dramtic chords not really going anywhere or doing anything. How rapidly this changes and the music quickly transforms to a cnstantly metamorphosing tableau, playing around a basic theme which reprises from time to time.

The main quality of the music is colour shifts as tone and music constantly adapt and evolve throughout the two sections of the album. This is so different form the shore programmed and immutable offerings that turned me off all those years ago, but sounds more like a return to music of Ricochet, Rubycon and Phaedra from the early Analogue Glory days.

The music is complex and sometimes challanging, but ultimaltly inspiring and uplifting, no more simple tunes played against the same old sequences that Chris Franke didnt bother to take with him when he left in the 80's. Innovation is back as Tangerine Dream are sounding like the band they always should have been.

Listen to this album!!

"Tangerine Dream" seemed to have been quite impressed by the Japanese culture. After the release of "Kyoto" which was which conceived during a tour in Japan and released a long time after, TD now offers an oeuvre which is divided into several albums of which three are released so far.

The first leg offers some very interesting music, sometimes close to their great seventies period: "Navel: Part One" & the first half of "Part Three"). Maybe that the fact that Edgar's son is not featured any more can explain this feeling: Edgar is again fully in charge (although one might suspect that he never lost control) and might be willing to integrate more of the "old TD" back again in his works. This is very much of my liking.

The "Second Part" will please more the fans of the nineties since it uses more these characteristically driven electronic upbeat sounds; although more sensitive in this circumstance.

The second piece of music from "Springtime In Nagasaki" (which holds only two) is more experimental for a good bunch. Surprisingly it ends up with a short section that is fully comparable as a Jean-Michel Jarre composition: melodic and commercial. Joyfull and very pleasant indeed.

In all, this album is another good work from Edgar (but these are countless by now). Three stars for the fist step into his "nuclear" music.