Tangerine Dream
Encore - Live

The stars and stripes flag adorns the cover of this double live album by Tangerine Dream, recorded during the American tour of March-April 1977. The German band's live albums are a genre in themselves within their impressive discography: they are not live records in the traditional sense because they feature almost exclusively unpublished material instead of tracks from previous albums performed in concert; furthermore, the editing work done in the studio on the recordings is always very significant, so the final result is actually the assembly of different moments from their concerts in a completely new and original guise. It was so for "Ricochet", the first live of the series, and the same goes for "Encore", an important album in the group's history because it is the last recorded by their most classic lineup: Froese, Franke, Baumann. At the end of the tour, Peter Baumann would leave his bandmates to pursue solo projects.

Four long pieces for 71 minutes of music, the album opens with "Cherokee Lane", a perfect introduction to the typical atmospheres of the band: rich and varied electronic sound, continuous mutation of melodic ideas, great inventiveness, and sonic alchemy among the three: here at their best. The following "Monolight" features an introduction (and finale) entrusted to the piano, sound ghosts that appear and disappear, the pulsing of a sequencer, and finally the theme of "Stratosfear", slower and more solemn compared to the studio original from the year before: a brief citation, just like for the theme of "Sorcerer" (their first soundtrack, from 1975, for the film of the same name by William Friedkin, the one of "The Exorcist").

In the third track, "Coldwater Canyon", Edgar Froese's electric guitar stands out prominently, occupying almost the entire 17 minutes of the piece, delivering long, hypnotic solos separated by interludes. It concludes with "Desert Dream", a more experimental piece, closing the album with atmospheres that recall the early records, like "Zeit" or "Atem".

This happened at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, at the Avery Fisher Hall in New York, and elsewhere in the United States: for those who weren't there, and didn't see the laser-show that accompanied the tour (perhaps the first in rock history), "Encore" is a must-have album.