Tangerine Dream
Oedipus Tyrannus

With Phaedra, Tangerine Dream released a classic of electronic music that made them popular, especially in Great Britain, where the album reached number 9 on the charts. Phaedra became an almost obligatory listen for the more enlightened listeners. It was clear that Tangerine Dream was changing direction after Cosmic Music and the experiments of the first four albums. I remember how in the book La musica rock progressiva europea by Al Aprile and Luca Mayer, it was considered the group's last flash of genius, an opinion with which I disagree. Instead, Tangerine Dream was intelligently changing their sound, making it more accessible but always of great qualitative value with the sequencer in the foreground. During that period, they also performed a series of memorable concerts, including the one at London's Victoria Palace on June 16, 1974. But, exactly four days before, Edgar Froese's group recorded material that is now considered a sort of lost album, namely Oedypus Tyrannus, a soundtrack for the play by actor Keith Michell. This is, in all respects, the missing link between Phaedra and the subsequent Rubycon. However, the music is at times very atmospheric and ties back to the previous, experimental, and free-form era. Musically, the settings are very cinematic. The first track "Overture" is characterized by the prepared piano sounds of Peter Baumann while the atmospheres are abstract and evocative. In "Act 1", the protagonist is the glissando guitar of Edgar Froese and Cristopher Franke, and the track, at times, almost seems like an outtake from Zeit. With "Act 2: Battle," we face the classic Virgin sound of the mid-'70s with the sequencer and mellotron as protagonists: it seems like a preview of what we will hear in Rubycon! In "Act 2: Baroque," the music is classical and dreamlike with a finale in typical Phaedra style, while "Act 2: Zeus" remains on experimental coordinates. The concluding track, namely "Act 3," has an atmospheric start that still seems to come directly from Rubycon with Peter Baumann's flute in the foreground (later re-recorded at the Manor): halfway through, the "mood" becomes dark and cosmic while the finale has the typical trademark of the period with the sequencer in evidence. Overall, we are faced with a very interesting album that remained in the drawer for many years (circulating only on bootleg) until its official release in the box set In Search Of Hades: The Virgin Recordings 1973-1979 in 2019. In many ways, it anticipates some solutions later exploited in Rubycon but is also a general rehearsal for subsequent soundtracks.