Tangerine Dream - Booster
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Music CD Cover Artist: Tangerine Dream Edition: Music CD Audio: English (Unknown) CD Release Date: 2008-05-13 Music Label: Cleopatra Soundtracks: Music CD 1
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| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $11.49 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $9.00 |
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Free Music Notes for Booster Album
Free Music Review: Nothing Like the 70's, but...
Hit: 3 Stars
...the seventies were along time ago.
What I don't get is why what is actually on the disk is not just represented more honestly by the clever blurbs on the shiny packaging. Why not simply just state "...Hearkens back to the early sounds of...Hyperborea, Logos, and Tangram..." since these are actual album sources. Beware: This is not a collection of epic long plays here. Only one track, Bells of Accra, is an original long play (14:27).
Perhaps Eastgate would like to compare the smooth and atmospheric tracks Metaphor Part I and II to Phaedra and Rubycon. Ok, a stretch but fine. Those are fine ambient tracks from Thorsten Quaeshning, and I must say yes, it is good to get calming spaces back into Tangerine Dream music, but it does not bring me back to the-- spare of drums and spanning 20 or more minutes-- seventies Berlin sound. Why should it? Instead Metaphor I and II have a more updated sound, much like contemporaries such as the Medieval Pundits or Karsh Kale. It stands well enough on it's own without making the claim of hearkening back.
The good thing is that even though there is a lot of rehash here in this collection-- And buyers make no mistake in assuming otherwise--, it is really brilliant and engaging rehash at times. Big Sir And The Oranges From Hieronymus Bosch is brilliant, even though it is the backing track from a Madcap's Flaming Duty song (There are two MCFD tracks on Booster). The languid guitar intro to Big Sir is awesome, and even doubled! Far out! Hyper Sphinx, which borrows heavily from the classic album Hyperborea, is a dense and irresistible remix of Sphinx Lightening, thick and punchy and Lady Monk is a great use of the Le Parc track Zen Garden (an improvement really). Logos, remixed and taken from the 1980's live album of the same name, moves as though it is the theme for Tangerine Dream goes for an Island vacation, and Tangram, which is the best remix and from Johanes Schmoellings debut studio appearance is quite stellar and driving.
Perhaps the 'hearkening' comes into play with Bells of Accra, an excellent long play of 14:27. It has range and a focused drive that pulses and intensifies, but still it stands on its own without a link to the past to hold it back. If anything, I'm still feeling more Hyperborea here, though no actual samples of that classic album are used. Bells of Acra unfolds as though you were walking the straight line of a desert horizon. This track will fill the living room nicely for years to come.
The only other track that stands as a throwback is The Greek Mirror which I must admit really hits the mark as it patiently builds up shifting rhythms to ecstatic levels comparable to Phaedra or Rubycon. Unfortunately at seven minutes, it leaves me wanting more.
Other standout tracks are Ca Va - Ca Marche - Ca Ira Encore, and Sleeping Watches Snoring in Silence which are very colorful, rich with swimming arpeggios, and grounded with strong and defined minor key melodies.
There is plenty on the disk, some tracks ho-hum (mainly on disk 2) but most really quite good. My only reluctance in not giving it a full array of stars, is that Booster does not feel like an album. It is a collection of curiosities and in my opinion, to really hearken back to the glowing seventies, we would hear something absolutely fluid, pure that is, neither remixed, commingled, nor re affected. Imagine Metaphore I and II each clocking in @ 23:00 minutes and finishing what The Greek Mirror started. That would be hearkening back. If we further imagine, those two tracks would stand on their own with a focused melodic, rythmic, or lyrical theme, needing nothing but a date stamp and credit, no blurbs in the liner notes to authenticate it or explain its intention.
So Tangerine Dream got me again! I fell for it, bought it but managed to enjoy most of the content. I even like the packaging. I would not call it a return to their long play prime however. If I could give it 3 and a half stars though I would, for what really works on the disc is well over an hours worth of music.