Saturday 6th May

This was one of those bands that emerged in the early Seventies, but Tangerine Dream were very different.   In fact as far as I can tell they were the pioneers of electronic music.  I had heard nothing quite like it, and even now re-listening to a few of their records, there is nothing quite like them.  I had bought one album of theirs I think when I saw them live.  They were, like Kraftwerk, a German band and at the forefront of the rapid developments in electronic instruments.  But this was years before portable synthesisers and samples and polyphonic chords were available.  I can remember that the stage was mostly dark and three or maybe four shadowy figures were moving around between large stacks of speakers and large organ-like instruments, lots of cables running everywhere.  The band members themselves only came to the front at the end of the show.  They played their first two albums straight through – Rubycon and Phaedra.  It was quite amazing, but unlike any concert I had been to before; no singing along as these pieces were strictly instrumental and no applause until the very end.   The records themselves have long been favourites, beautiful, almost vibrating notes drifting on and on and insistent bass notes coming in and out.

And ever since then I have been interested in ‘electronica’.  Terry Riley had already released ‘A Rainbow in C’, Tubular bells soon followed, Jean-Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk and Bowie’s Berlin phase.  Later we had a plethora of electronic music; Chemical Brothers, Groove Armada and Goldfrapp included.  But none of them seems to have quite entranced me as did those first two Tangerine Dream albums.  It may be an eclectic choice but they are well worth listening to.