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Tangerine Dream: Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann, Chris Franke (keyboards, synthesizer). Recorded at Dierks Studio, Cologne, Germany in 1973. Includes liner notes by Paul Russell. Digitally remastered by Thomas Heimann-Trosien (1995 Eastgate Studios, Vienna, Austria). Pioneers in the use of synthesizers within a rock format, Tangerine Dream have, since the late-1960s, inspired generations of electronic artists to experiment with subtly evolving ambiences and expansive sonic landscapes. TD's music signaled a sea change in `70s psychedelia from outward-bound blues-based rock experimentation, to the inner-space explorations of ambient electronica. ATEM, released in 1973, marks a transitional period from the group's early free-form electronic style to the propulsive, sequencer-driven trance of their mid-`70s albums. ATEM begins with the ritual majesty of its side-long title track; with a percussive pace that quickens from fits and starts to a furious tribal pounding, "Atem" finally settles into a serene, but ominous, organ drone (eerily resembling composer Gyorgi Ligeti's billowing sound masses on his ATMOSPHERES). The rest of the album ventures down more "kosmische" alleys favored by their German brethren, Popul Vuh and Ash Ra Tempel--taking in everything from unsettling vocalizations, to weird, droning analog electronics. While TD's synth-driven overtone explorations would seem at first blush to be no different than so much New Age fodder, they were, for the time, a radical departure from entrenched trad-rock values. By taking the most salient innovations of German postwar electronic music and applying it to the mind-expanding possibilities of psychedelia, they paved a path for modern-day electronic-oriented forms such as techno and trance.
