Now, for something completely different, I will begin a series where I will share with you some of my favorite musical experiences. Please let me know if this essay or excursion is interesting to you. Your feedback can help me decide if this is something I should do more often.
This first entry will be a review of a landmark and a truly pivotal album in modern music history: Phaedra by Tangerine Dream.
We need some contextual information to truly grasp the impact that Phaedra made upon modern music. To those unfamiliar with Tangerine Dream, they are probably one of the biggest groups that have exerted an outsized influence on contemporary music that most people still have not heard anything about. Most people have heard quite a bit of TD music, but they were most likely unaware of what they were listening to. Some of their work crops up in surprising contemporary places, like the Netflix series Stranger Things. Tangerine Dream is the fountainhead of a hundred thousand copy cat electronic groups, or at the very least, the founding members of Tangerine Dream (itself a complex issue) serve as the patron saints or godfathers of the modern electronic music genre. Yes, there are others out there that have also served as pivotal, essential pioneers of the field. Klaus Schulze, Vangelis (both of whom recently passed away, much to my sorrow), Jean-Michel Jarre, the list is quite extensive. The bottom line is that the decade of the 1970s was a ferment of innovation, probably the most innovative decade of music ever, in my humble opinion. And Tangerine Dream were firmly in the vanguard of this music. But I digress.
The founder and front-man of TD was Edgar Froese. Edgar began his creative endeavors in the field of art. He spent some wondering months as a disciple of Dali, even hanging out with him at his French estate for a period of time. He had a bad experience with one of his art teachers, who dismissively physically destroyed one of Edgar’s art pieces (I believe it was a sculpture), and this act literally changed music history, because the action of the art teacher so enraged Edgar that he quit the class and turned his energies into music. The world is a better place. Thank you, narrow-minded art teacher.
(Edgar Froese in 1975, a year after Phaedra.)
Edgar assembled a rag-tag group of session musicians and they started playing what can only really be described as “kraut rock,” itself a borderline dismissive term that is faintly anti-German. Tangerine Dream really started off as a kind of Pink Floyd cover band, with occasional experimental and sonic excursions. Edgar played guitar and was pretty decent at it. From 1967 to the end of 1969, they really just played a bunch of jam sessions and gigs.
One of these jam sessions happened to be recorded and then released as an album, much to Edgar’s surprise: Electronic Meditation. No real electronics were used on the album, and it remains really a piece of music curio, a kind of avant-garde statement. Notably, the aforementioned Klaus Schulze played drums on this album, before he ventured off on a highly successful solo career in 1972.
Tangerine Dream morphed the following year after a few departures and shufflings of personnel. The drum set was abandoned, as was the guitar, and they headed down a path that would ultimately lead them to revolutionizing electronic music. A very young man by the name of Chris Franke had joined the band and was lending his talents to fashioning this new direction. The result was Alpha Centauri, which showcased TD’s shift from kraut rock to cosmiche music, or “space music.” This is actually a quite fascinating album in its own right, and I will probably do my own review later. Two further refinements followed with Zeit in 1972 and Atem in 1973. Each album solidified their musical expertise, with a young Peter Baumann joining the band for both Zeit and Atem. Other session members had finally left, and so the stage was really set for this trio, Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, and Peter Baumann to launch a series of albums and tours that would forever change the musical landscape.
(Tangerine Dream in 1974: from left to right, Chris Franke, Edgar Froese, and Peter Baumann)
All of the above was really necessary to showcase and explain why Phaedra is special. After Atem, and after a quite providential exposure granted by the UK’s John Peel, Tangerine Dream came to the attention of young rich entrepreneur Richard Branson. Yes, that Richard Branson. He had started a record label, Virgin Records, and he signed Tangerine Dream and essentially gave them full creative control, something which is basically unheard of in the music business. Branson deserves immense credit for what he did, because in these early years, Tangerine Dream was explicitly NOT a commercially viable enterprise. Far from it. The output was not radio friendly at all. Most of the “songs” would go on past twenty minutes, with many of the songs devoid of melody or hooks. Pop music, this wasn’t.
And so, they recorded an album that has been included on various “must hear” or “must listen to before you die” lists.
Of course, the album title comes straight out of Greek mythology. Phaedra was a wife of Theseus, king of Athens, who fell in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, who refused her advances. According to one version of the story, this enrages her and so she accuses him of trying to rape her, essentially giving Hippolytus a death sentence. Consumed by guilt after his death, she commits suicide. (This proves that humanity has always been fatally racked with tragedy and sin.)
(Ah, the unrequited love of Phaedra.)
A second version of the story casts Phaedra in a much better light, accentuating her virtues while also telling a tragic tale of lust, rejection, shame, and the tides of fate of men and the gods.
(The tragic death of Hippolytus, showing us that men who reject women have never had it easy down through the centuries.)
Edgar Froese was personally steeped in mythology. It is obvious from many of the albums and songs of Tangerine Dream that Edgar was exceedingly well read in philosophy, history, etc. Edgar was able to drink deeply from these wells to help provide the creative impetus for his musical ambitions. You can listen to this album without knowing anything at all about the Phaedra myth, of course. But I find it interesting to examine the source of art.
Here is a breakdown of the album:
Side A
1."Phaedra"Froese, Franke, Baumann 17:39
Side B
1."Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares" Froese 9:55
2."Movements of a Visionary" Froese, Franke, Baumann 7:56
3."Sequent C'"Baumann 2:13
Instruments used:
Edgar Froese – mellotron, guitar, bass, VCS 3 synthesizer, organ, cover painting
Christopher Franke – moog synthesizer, VCS 3 synthesizer
Peter Baumann – organ, electric piano, VCS 3 synthesizer, recorder
Here are a few quotes from other album reviews. First, from Sputnik Music:
Phaedra essentially fits into the progressive and ambient genres. The first passage in Phaedra lasts about 4 minutes long with sweeping solar wind like swoops and a continuous moog synthesizer sound that cautiously builds up and creates a trance-inducing effect. As the passage builds up, so do the sweeping synth noises that somehow flow into a precipitated passage of rapid bass noise. The flow between the passages is spectacular, having a seamless transition between bass and synthesizer. The transitions in Phaedra truly show how much Tangerine Dream have developed since their often inharmonious prior works.
As the bass melts away, eerie moog synthesizer noises roll in and transform into a familiar slowly ascending movement. As the volume starts to rise, so do the sweeping solar noises fading in and out, with a variety of wavey synthesizer sounds weaved into the soundscape. The build up climaxes 10 minutes into the piece, with haunting choruses adding to the spine-chilling feel. After the build the scene is set on a desolate planet, with spooky organ chords, an eerie background hum and chilling alien like noises. As the song slowly fades out with its spine-tingling synthesizer noises, it is very difficult not to be drawn into the music; to imagine the scene Tangerine Dream intended to create. What Tangerine Dream do is absorb the listener into the music, and drive home the emotion of the experience. To call this song anything short of brilliance would be a fallacy.Of course the album is not just one song in length, and although Tangerine Dream could have easily left it at that, the album still contains three more spellbinding songs. Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares is a solo piece by the band’s leader Edgar Froese. Rather than an artificial and detached sound that many ambient songs could be accused of, its spiralling synthesizer washes are abundant with emotion. The song never really reaches anywhere, yet the immersion in the journey brings much enjoyment.
The themes of the album do not differ much from the straight and narrow, yet the planets, galaxies and universes of each song are clearly defined. Movements Of A Visionary begins with stuttering bug like noises that creating a tense and frightening atmosphere. The transitions once again are done to perfection, with helicopter like noises fading in and out into those familiar moog synths. Unlike the title tracks desolate planet feel, Movements Of A Visionary feels full of life with croaking bugs and clicking insects dwelling inside the untamed jungle. Letting oneself drift away with the music creates a surreal experience of art and music blended into one, before Tangerine Dream quickly pull the listener out of their mesmerised state.
Sequent C' has a strong feeling of depression, with the minor key synthetic washes slowly making a path through the song. It is not of the same breed as the first 3 tracks, nor of the same magnitude. But it does make for a chillingly beautiful ending. The song does not dwell about, with its aching sorrow driven into the listener’s heart in just over two minutes. Whilst no magical world is created in the music, it acts as one last pure release of emotion as the album fades out.
As you can no doubt guess, Phaedra isn’t for everyone. If you permit yourself to be immersed into the music, and allow yourself to float away into Phaedra’s world then it is quite simply one of the most spell-binding albums of the 20th century. But with a sceptical & demanding mind Phaedra does not offer its full experience to the listener. The album is still as highly influential as it was back in the 70s, and it is easy to see why. Tangerine Dream truly were leaders in electronic music, they carved a path with Phaedra for future generations to follow and learn from. Genius is an overused term in the music industry, thrown about left right and center. Phaedra however is one of those rare cases where the term is merited.
A review by John Bush on Allmusic:
Phaedra is one of the most important, artistic, and exciting works in the history of electronic music, a brilliant and compelling summation of Tangerine Dream's early avant-space direction balanced with the synthesizer/sequencer technology just beginning to gain a foothold in nonacademic circles. The result is best heard on the 15-minute title track, unparalleled before or since for its depth of sound and vision. Given focus by the arpeggiated trance that drifts in and out of the mix, the track progresses through several passages including a few surprisingly melodic keyboard lines and an assortment of eerie Moog and Mellotron effects, gaseous explosions, and windy sirens. Despite the impending chaos, the track sounds more like a carefully composed classical work than an unrestrained piece of noise. While the title track takes the cake, there are three other excellent tracks on Phaedra. "Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares" is a solo Edgar Froese song that uses some surprisingly emotive and affecting synthesizer washes, and "Movements of a Visionary" is a more experimental piece, using treated voices and whispers to drive its hypnotic arpeggios. Perhaps even more powerful as a musical landmark now than when it was first recorded, Phaedra has proven the test of time.
In conclusion, Phaedra remains a go-to album for when I want to think, to look inward, or just to have something ineffable and beautiful playing in the background. There’s a part at the end of the song Phaedra where it has a segment of the sounds of children playing happily at a playground. This always transports me to my childhood. While I am not the type to wallow in sentimentality, this segment is a fitting coda to a singular musical experience.
If you are interested in new experiences musically, you cannot go wrong with tipping your feet into the streams of innovation that were Tangerine Dream in the 1970s. And Phaedra lies at the source of the stream.
Finally, you can listen to the entire album here: