RUBYCON

Far Eastern bells are joined by the usual spacey sounds that are what remains of the pink period, but a couple of minutes are enough to make clear that the Tangerine Dream are now something different. The fist part of Rubycon, if released today would be called ambient or newage, but it was released in 1975 so it deserves the status of progressive electronic masterpiece..

Fans of Vangelis can surely like this music as there's a lot of common elements between the two. As usual for TD each side-long piece has different "movements". After 6 minutes there's a spacey interlude and a more ryhthmic section starts. I'm sure that also Alan Parsons has been influenced by those sounds.

Rubycon is less experimental than the previous releases. Surely it's easier, nothing so challenging as Zeit or Atem can be. Another artist whosemusic can be somewhat compared to is Jean Michel Jarre, but thanks to the God of Rock, not so commercial.

At minute 12 the rhytmic section becomes more compulsive with some accents (electronic, not orchestral) that are what I connect to the works of Alan Parson in the 80s (that I don't like very much).

The third section, at minute 14 has initially a middle-eastern flute sound, but the final is totally spacey. When the rhythm is gone we are back to when we started (just after the bells). No relations with anybody else at this point. This is pure Tangerine Dream.

Part II starts with sounds like a siren of war. Are we going to be bombed? Or is it just a dream? Effectively the smooth sounds give the impression of something unreal, a nightmare about war. It then developes into an orgy of "voices" like the representation of the Greek "ADE" or the monolyth sounds of Kubrick's 2001. After the voices the rhythm restarts.

Of course when the ambient changes we are at minute 5. This movement or section is quite similar in the structure to Ricochet. The compulsive rhythm gives room to square waves and string orchestra sound.....until minute 10...

The rhythm increases but is relegated in the background. There are changes in pitch and everything is now more spacey. Then water...seashore...and electronic. We know that this sea is synthetic. The sounds are not made to make us think to anything real. It's a nightmare, remember?

No more rhythm and now we are back to space. We woke up from that dream or nightmare just to realize that we are on a starship going nowhere in the deep space. It's not the atonal music of zeit. It's an envelop of sounds into which my headphones can wrap me up.

The last two minutes are a beautiful and relaxing moment that reminds to far East again. When it ends I want more...how can some people find them boring?

If music is made to transmit emotions from one mind to another, this album does its job.

For anybody who wants to start with Tangerine Dream, this is the first accessible work of them. but don't misunderstand me: it's accessible, it doesn't mean commercial or trivial. It's a masterpiece and probably the best release of this German trio.