Tangerine Dream – Live at Royal Albert Hall – 1975 – Introduced by John Peel – BBC Radio 1 –
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Tangerine Dream in concert tonight. One of the pioneering bands of the German prog-Rock/Electonica genre – they were, along with Can and several other influential German bands largely responsible for taking electronic music out of the experimental laboratory and putting on stage and creating an environment that, at times, resembled a mass meditation rather than a concert.
Tangerine Dream was founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only continuous member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the group was its mid-’70s trio of Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann (during the time of this concert). In the late 1970s, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann. Since Froese’s death in 2015, the group has been under the leadership of Thorsten Quaeschning (Froese’s chosen successor and the current longest-serving band member, having joined in 2005). He is joined by violinist Hoshiko Yamane who joined in 2011 and Ulrich Schnauss who joined in 2014.
Tangerine Dream are considered pioneers of the early days of electronica.[3] Their work with the electronic music Ohr label produced albums that had a pivotal role in the development of the German musical scene known as kosmische (“cosmic”). Their “Virgin Years”, so called because of their association with Virgin Records, produced albums that further explored synthesizers and sequencers, including the UK top 20 albums Phaedra (1974) and Rubycon (1975). The group also had a successful career composing film soundtracks, creating over 60 scores, which include those for the films Sorcerer, Thief, Risky Business, The Keep, Firestarter, Legend, Three O’Clock High, Near Dark, Shy People, and Miracle Mile.
From the late 1990s into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream continued to explore other styles of instrumental music as well as electronica. Their recorded output has been prolific, including over one hundred albums. Among other scoring projects, they helped create the soundtrack for the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Their mid-1970s work has been profoundly influential in the development of electronic music styles such as new age (although the band themselves disliked the term) and electronic dance music.
To get an idea of what they were like during their formative years, here is a concert they performed in 1975 (during the time of Phaedra and Rubycon) at The Royal Albert Hall and introduced by none other than John Peel.
No – you cannot dance to this – but you can have an out-of-body experience instead.
