Tangerine Dream
Phaedra

"Let's stop, let's establish one thing. We are now about to create a new work. We are with Virgin. We are still doing cosmic nonsense, but it cannot be the same nonsense as before. We want to sell records. We want to sell A LOT of records. We want to be commercial. We need to be, and we will be. But we will be elegant in this. We will be creative and commercial at the same time. We will do the impossible, we will not sacrifice our identity, yet we will be popular."

Frankly speaking, I still can't understand how "Phaedra" managed to reach those high positions in the charts of Europe at the time. It's probably for the same reason why "Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull reached the top spots two years earlier: people were intoxicated with the spirit of the time and tried to adapt to it, or probably hoped to do so.

Anyway, along with Kraftwerk, they differ quite significantly from the rest of the dominant music of the time. Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk were indeed the two biggest electronic groups of the mid-'70s (mind you: I'm talking about the mid-'70s, and not the early '70s where bands like Faust and Can were superbly dominating and selling miserably). Electronics was the future, and making headway while trying to be accessible to everyone was no easy task. But while Kraftwerk's dream was to perfect a sort of cold "robotic" approach, Tangerine Dream was still perfecting their astral compositions.

"Phaedra" does just that - even more than "Green Desert" - it forcefully recreates an atmospheric and dizzying space environment. As usual, the first side is entirely occupied by a single track (the title track), while the second side is dedicated to three "minor" tracks.

"Phaedra" is structured similarly to "Atem": a fast and energetic part followed by a slow and "melancholic" one, only in this case the two parts are more or less equal in length. It's 17 minutes of an electronic poem, never before had the band used sequential rhythms so extensively, and the effect produced is truly enchanting. After a calm, shimmering introduction, a constant bass line enters (almost morphine-like I would say) which is the point around which a delicate synth texture develops; then the bass gradually fades away (not without a final reflux) as the quiet initial atmosphere resumes. At this point, solemn "voices" enter, and the piece ends with a final revelation. A piece in which all the band's musical concerns are inextricably merged, and this is probably the quintessence of Tangerine Dream's classic period. More specifically, the fast part introduces the audience for the first time to a specific loop, the boopy (also present on the album "Green Desert" recorded the previous year but released only 12 years later), and it is truly fascinating in its development and progression, although today it can be easily achieved even without being too expert in electronics; it all lies in the small effect with which the loop suddenly starts to rise in pitch, crucial for the performance, fantastic in giving us a situation of anxiety and calm at the same time.

A 50-second segment reproducing voices and noises of children playing prepares us for "Mysterious Semblance at the Stand of Nightmares", which does not revolve around a central pivot but rather evolves from a series of harmonic variations that can easily evoke, among other things, a nocturnal procession. The instrumentation is dominated by the mellotron, even more so than in Fauni-Gena by "Atem" of the previous year. In the middle of the fifth minute, a brief passage introduces a state of tension caused by melodies that are almost competing with each other, and it is easy for this to give us the most absurd visions; Baumann's piano gradually fades, and the mellotron initially resurfaces before sinking into silence, while a noisy wind gradually rises, joining the VCS3's oscillations. Speaking personally, I have only heard such emphatic performances on the mellotron in "Aguirre" by Popol Vuh.

In "Movements of a Visionary" Baumann starts by reproducing a tenuous voice with the synth, which is given a strong high pitch, which after a while joins a fast sequence of notes emanating from Franke's moog. The sequence then echoes from the synth, and Froese overlays organ notes with quite high tones, intercepted by the reverberation of Baumann's piano. These final minutes are enough to elevate the piece's performance, and concentrating everything into such a brief duration works entirely to their creative merits.

In "Sequent 'C'" Baumann is the only one playing. It is a fugue that unfolds on a long and constant lingering so that after about 20 seconds he can continue playing a new melody on top of the previous one. This can partly echo some musical reproductions of Terry Riley, and in my opinion, there was no better way to conclude the album.