Stratosfear: Tangerine Dream

Chris S wrote: Breakthrough album with an uncanny balance of guitar and synth. Rubicon still throbbed and pulsed like a new star like Phaedra but Stratosfear, looking back was like musical osmosis. The Big Sleep in Search of Hades and the incredible Invisible Limits, well, enough said. Hard album like Cyclone to follow yet it has stood up well in time......

This!

Shortly after the release of Stratosfear the band began striking up deals to compose film scores and work with established film directors. This being a way for the band to survive financially and maybe to a degree..their style changing could be attributed to that. Hyperborea and White Eagle were appealing ..yet seemed to fit into a more modern sound for the 80's. I thought very highly of Legend. I could always listen to Legend without thinking of the scenes in the film and naturally being dismissive of the fact that it was a film score. I truly enjoyed it more than Le Parc. Many of their soundtracks ..to me personally just felt like regular albums. Regular T.D. releases. A few of their soundtracks felt cheesy as if they were towing the line, but the majority of the time the band seemed to have a great originality to them. Some folks in the past have stated that Johannes Schmoelling brought a more commercial style of writing into the band, but I've noticed over the years how his solo effort The Zoo Of Tranquility remained in a world of it's own musically and was very much a separate affair from his contributions in T.D. ..It felt more quirky/avant-garde electronic and less commercial "New Age" than Lilly on the Beach.  

verslibre wrote: TODDLER wrote: I liked Stratosfear because the band focused more on melody and how to create a kind of haunting melody over top of the electronics. For example, when I make reference to melody it relates more to what people define as a signature line contained in an instrumental.   A melody can change over the course of the composition as the composer-player desired, but I know exactly what you mean. I use the word "motif" (often incorrectly) to identify the quality that you're targeting here. It's exactly why Stratosfear is a brilliant record. Those recurring thematic aspects make it the yang to Rubycon's yin. TODDLER wrote: Guitar became more of a lead instrument in the music of Tangerine Dream beginning with Stratosfear. I personally believe several electronic bands were influenced by Edgar's guitar idea. The way that the band composed their electronic music on Stratosfear was more relative to Prog than pulsating electronics established within the electronic music world. The reason for this existed in the guitar lines. For example , Ash Ra Temple and Amon Duul II experimented with the guitar quite in the same fashion as the early Pink Floyd. You can even spot that particular style of guitar playing over top of atmospheric composition on MEDDLE. I believe that the early Pink Floyd inspired the Krautrock and Electronic music scene. Especially when certain Krautrock bands emulated the Pink Floyd sound and when the guitar became more dominant in the Berlin style of Electronic music. Prior to that period in time, Electronic music was approached much differently. As Prog Rock often included lead guitar, so would Electronic music. A very strange observation is to listen to Trans Harmonic Nights by Peter Baumann and notice that he is producing the same style from 77' without the guitar nevertheless...and gives a sample of how less musically it's relation can be to Rock music. Although many of the patterns are easier to digest than Atem, Phadrea, or Rubycon, they don't represent such a Progressive Rock sound without the guitar.     Do you like Ashra, the band that succeeded Ash Ra Tempel? Manuel Gottsching condensed the band into a trio. The 1978/1980 albums Correlations and Belle Alliance are heavily electronic and at times sound like TD with full-time guitar and drums. I'm certain you already have them, but if you don't...!

Guldbamsen wrote: I think, just like others have mentioned, that their sound changed exponentially with the synths they got a hold of. This is especially true from Stratosfear and onwards imo.

I was going to suggest that they also started phasing out the Mellotron although when I checked all three members used it on this album. By Tangram though there was no Mellotron and I think that was also significant. 

Guldbamsen wrote: Yes, but didn't I say that? Sorry I don't mean to be snippy I do understand why most people prefer their more melodic albums though. After all, I think it's fair to state that there are more music fans in the world into melody and structure than there are those into freeform and abstract soundscapes. It'd be strange if it was the other way around.

Yes, but didn't I say that? Sorry I don't mean to be snippy

TODDLER wrote: Walton Street wrote: I remember when it came out it took a little getting used to - but it grew on me I know this sounds odd but I used to think of is as their first 'commercial' album.   a little more accessible I guess compared to the earlier stuff although I personally found everything after Electronic Meditation pretty accessible  ..   I do dig it though   It's not odd at all because many of my friends felt that Stratosfear was their first commercial album. That's actually funny to think about it in the present and only because of the separation of music styles over many decades causing a majority of people to not realize that observation..but it is in fact how a great many people felt in the 70's.

Walton Street wrote: I remember when it came out it took a little getting used to - but it grew on me I know this sounds odd but I used to think of is as their first 'commercial' album.   a little more accessible I guess compared to the earlier stuff although I personally found everything after Electronic Meditation pretty accessible  ..   I do dig it though

I liked Stratosfear because the band focused more on melody and how to create a kind of haunting melody over top of the electronics. For example, when I make reference to melody it relates more to what people define as a signature line contained in an instrumental. This can be discovered on Sorcerer as well and it was a new beginning for Tangerine Dream and a daring one at that. Signature lines that presented a reprise in a piece of music composition were often evident in the 70's Progressive Rock. For example, a person might hear 1 or 2 repeated lines in The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway resulting in hearing a strange, obscure..series of notes played on side 3 or 4 of the Lamb ..which originally began on side 1. This wouldn't actually be a reprise , but a kind of subtle return to notes that first existed in a song on side 1, revolving around the story of a certain character and became a reflection later on in the album. The music on Stratosfear sets off a vibe to me of being alone. Being alone in the sense that we die alone. It has a very strange vibe to it because of the change the band made to direct a strange bizarre sounding melody which was played over a pulsating electronic beat and also on the atmospheric/ambient sections of the music. This is a technique or method used by Mike Oldfield in the most unique manner. Mike Oldfield is a master at producing music that contains a haunting melody that the listener may identify with and throughout his music that melody might fade into oblivion...only to surprise the listener by returning in the most unpredictable subtle way. I believe with Stratosfear...the band was experimenting with that idea and attempting to master it in their own unique way..simply because it blossomed later on and not backed stylistically by anything relevant on Stratosfear.  For example, Le Parc , Underwater Sunlight, Tangram, and others contained more commercial, easy to digest melodies...where Stratosfear was a experiment with more dark sounding melodies that layered over top of the style the band produced on Phadrea and Rubycon. The first time Edgar Froese's guitar sounded anything up to par with Steve Hillage or Andrew Latimer was on Force Majeure. Prior to that time..he had been improvising a lot and it was mostly present on Encore (live), but in 79' he seemed to get everything perfect with his playing within his writing and pretty much scaled up the totem pole to what Hillage, Latimer, and even Oldfield were doing on the instrument.

Edited by TODDLER - January 07 2015 at 11:02