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Tangerine Dream

Bio

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic band founded by Edgar Froese in 1967. It can undoubtedly be considered one of the most influential groups in the electronic scene since its music has had an enormous impact not only on techno music and progressive rock, but also on the way to compose modern film soundtracks.

The group led by Froese debuted on the Krautrock scene at the start of the Seventies with Electronic Meditation (1970), followed by Alpha Centauri (1971) and Zeit (1972).

But it was with the following Atem (1973), Phaedra(1974), and Rubycon (1975), published with Virgin Records, that obtained true success with the public and the critics. It was thanks to the success of these last two albums that Paul Brickman chose them to curate the soundtrack to the cult film Risky Business. This project led them to become veterans of cinematic soundtracks, indeed they worked on more than 30 projects, including Sorcerer (1977) by The Exorcist director William Friedrick.

The end of the Seventies brought with them a change in the musical style and in the line-up of the German band. With the 1978 album Cyclone, Tangerine Dream added for the first time organic vocal and instruments to their tacks, like the piano and guitar, while that same year, the historic pianist of the group Peter Baumann left the group and was replaced by Johannes Schmoelling. It was with this new member that in 1980 Tangerine Dream performed at the Palast der Republik in Berlin in the first live performance of a western band on the other side of the iron curtain.

With the release of Hyperborea in 1983, Tangerine Dream ended their collaboration with Virgin Records and moved to Zomba/Jive Records. This label change infused the group with new energy and Le Parc (1985) experimented with sampling. The experiment turned out a success and the album was acclaimed by the critics that deemed it one of the best albums of the decade.

The German band changed labels once again in 1988 to entrust themselves to the independent project of ex-member Peter Baumann with whom they published numerous efforts like Optical Race (1988) 

A new decade and a new label. In 1992 Tangerine Dream, which in the meantime was composed only by Edgar Froese and his son Jerome, published Rockoon, which was nominated in that year Grammys, with record label Miramar.

The 2000s are the time of the series: The Dante Trilogy (with Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso published between 2002 and 2005), Atomic Seasons, and The Bootmooon Series.

In 2007 they performed in a series of concerts to celebrate 40 years of the group’s career but also the life of Edgar, who sadly passed away two years before.

The group kept recording and performing as a trio comprising Thorstein Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss, and Hoshiko Yamane. This new formation published their first artistic effort without Froese, Quantum Gate, in 2017, followed in 2020 by Recurring Dreams, an album of classic Tangerine Dream songs but re-arranged by the new line-up.

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