Eclectic Music Press Release Re-Print Eclectic Music is not affiliated with the record label or artist in this post, the press release is being reprinted here with full permission from the record label and is being reprinted in full with the sole intent of disseminating information. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Elektra/Asylum BIO TANGERINE DREAM (Exit) Edgar Froese - keyboards, electronic equipment, guitar Chris Franke - synthesizers, electronic equipment, electronic percussion Johannes Schmoelling - keyboards, electronic equipment After a decade-plus of best-selling albums, critical and popular recognition, West Berlin-based electronic music trio Tangerine Dream has become synonymous with some of the most creative, provocative instrumental sounds yet heard from the European music community. Exit is the trio's fifteenth album and their first non-soundtrack LP for Elektra/ Asylum (TD's label debut was March '80's acclaimed soundtrack album from the film "Thief"). The new LP marks Tangerine Dream's first use of vocals since 1978's Cyclone, the only other of the band's previous albums to include them. On Exit, the human voice is used not only for lyric phrasing and melodic texture, but to convey a special message of peace. Rather than aiming directly at the conscious of the listener, the message is direct to the subconscious, a manifestation of the group's deep fascination with parapsychology and related phenomena. The message is heard on "Kiew Mission," the LP's opening cut; the uncredited vocalist is singing in Russian. Tangerine Dream founder Edgar Froese explains: "The words are directed to people in Russia. It's a very spiritual message we hope will help ease the situation over here. If you were in Europe right now, you would see and hear how everybody on the Continent is talking about the Third world War. People meet each other and don't talk about anything else except what will happen when the war starts. What's happening between Poland and Russia, what the Americans are doing and so on...the papers are full of it. "We can't do things like politicians do. As Musicians, all we can do is use our music to say something about the positive side and hope the message comes through. we're shipping - at our own expense - a lot of records to different people in Russia, people in the political power structure, in the arts, and just to the Russian people, too. It may be one of the first times, if not the first, that people there get a message of this kind directly from Western musicians. "We didn't do it because we thought Russia would start a war or America would start one. All we want to do is make people aware that they should start thinking about their own lives, and the risk they face if they don't think about the realities we all face." Here's the English translation of TD's "Kiew Mission" message (Froese says "words in parenthesis are not spoken but are conducive to elucidation"): Continent Asia Africa Europe Australia America (this is the) Earth Past Present Future World (that is) Peace To understand (uncompleted) To understand (completed) To ask To answer To speak To be absorbed in thought The thought reader knows Message Communicating with friends To exchange views Boundlessness Man (is a) Rational being Talk conversation (repeat) Froese, a trained artist and sculptor hailing from Tilsit, West Germany, began playing music professionally in 1965. Heavily influenced by British rock 'n' roll and American soul, he formed a band called The Ones, which, during summer '66, played a season in Cadaques in northeastern Spain. Froese also spent considerable time with Salvadore Dali while in the area. That episode and Froese's increasing exposure to modern and contemporary electronic music gave him the determination to break beyond the limitations normally present in a conventional rock 'n' roll band. Within a year, following another visit to Cadaques (which included a performance at Dali's villa) and four poverty- stricken months in residence at Johnny Halliday's famous club in Paris, The Ones had fragmented and Froese was in a position to begin exploring the frontier of structured sound. He founded Tangerine Dream in September '67, having fashioned the name from The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. Initially, Tangerine Dream was very definitely a rock 'n' roll band but constantly fluctuated inside and outside convention. The band was powerful, loud and unpredictable. The new band played their first gig in Berlin in January '68 following four solid months' rehearsal. The student uprisings of that year were an important factor in Tangerine Dream's early direction - the band's audience then was primarily highly political students who, demanding a total break with the past, considered songs bourgeois because they were structured. That dovetailed nicely with Froese's desire to "push out the limits," so at that point Tangerine Dream began playing "free" or unstructured music. The band frequently performed five and six-hour sets at clubs such as the Berlin Zodiac, where one roam was totally white and the other was totally black. In such an atmosphere, it was easier to shed one's musical preconceptions. The band's strong underground following around Berlin notwithstanding, Tangerine Dream split up in March '69. Froese persevered with two more incarnations, neither of which were successful musically, before he teamed in November with Conny Schnitzler (Cello, violin, flute) and Klaus Schulze (drums). The trio recorded an experimental tape spliced with sound effects and, much to their surprise, it landed them a recording deal with Berlin-based Ohr Music. The first fruit of that relationship was Electronic Meditations, released in Germany in '70. When Schulze went his own way soon after the album's release, Froese enlisted Christoph Franke, whose reputation as one of Europe's best young jazz drummers had preceded him. Schnitzler was then replaced by Steve Shroyder. Froese, Franke and Shroyder achieved Tangerine Dream's first commercial success in Germany with their Alpha Centauri album, released in '71. Shroyder left and Froese found his replacement, Peter Baumann, in a Berlin club. That lineup, at least on vinyl, remained the same for the next six years. Early in '72, the band recorded Zeit, a double album that was their most experimental to date and stands as Tangerine Dream's furthest departure from rock 'n' roll. Paradoxically, the group's subsequent single - "Ultima Thule Parts 1 And 2" - was essentially hard-driving rock. But then Tangerine Dream has always thrived on contradictions. 1973's Atem Album was crucial in terms of gaining recognition outside Germany influential British air personality John Peel chose the LP as his top LP of '73. Meanwhile, Tangerine Dream Exited Ohr following a bitter dispute and signed with London based Virgin Records. Phaedra ('74) was the group's first internationally-released album. though they hadn't yet performed in England nor spoken to the press and received no airplay above and beyond John Peel's, the Album cracked the U.K. Top 10. That success inevitably led to the trio's first London appearances, in June '74, during which British fans were introduced to Tangerine Dream's onstage tradition of not acknowledging the audience and performing their improvised sets in near total darkness. That method of operation, excepting the occasional use of film and/or video synthesizer, was unbroken through 1977. Later in '74, Tangerine Dream embarked on their first major U.K. tour, during which their cult following expanded appreciably. It's interesting to note, though, that the band's expensive space-age equipment was moved from gig to gig in a battered 1950s-vintage furniture truck that couldn't be driven faster than 40 miles per hour. The end of '74 was marked by what remains perhaps TD's most notorious performance in historic Rheims Cathedral. The group's previous French concert had been at a small club near Lyon in July '73, with a mere forty people in the audience. At Rheims, 6,000 people sardined into the ancient structure, which actually could safely hold only 2,000. The overcrowding resulted in chaos, which in turn led to international outrage at the violation of the church's sanctity and decorum. Pope Paul VI subsequently decreed Tangerine Dream would never be welcomed to play in a Catholic cathedral again, and Rheims itself would have to be purified. The papal damnation, of course, was a left-handed blessing in that it focused an enormous amount of attention on Tangerine Dream and their music. The Rheims fiasco also marked what was to become something of a trademark for the group - to attempt transforming selected performances into events rather than simply concerts, particularly by using unusual or unconventional venues. During the next two years Tangerine Dream played the Roman amphitheater in Orange in Southern France, the French Communist Party-sponsored "Fete de L'Humanite," Coventry Cathedral (so much for the Papal decree), Liverpool Cathedral, York Minster and a pair of concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. Phaedra, in the interim, had gone gold in Australia so the band toured there in March '75, with Michael Hoenig temporarily replacing Baumann. There, Tangerine Dream was plagued by equipment problems, not the least of which was that Franke's massive synthesizer had been irreparably damaged in transit. Audience reaction Down Under was mixed. Nonetheless, the band's first tour outside Europe was a memorable experience, especially the hair-raising nine-hour flight across the Australian desert in an eightseater, necessitated by an airline strike. Through extensive touring, Tangerine Dream's European following solidified during the middle part of the decade; before the end of '75 another two albums were released Rubycon and Ricochet. The latter album, recorded live, was titled after an electronic game the group has became obsessed with during a series of dates in France. It was during that period that TD developed a reputation for being one of the loudest groups around, often reaching 130 db (decibels), which in part was attributable to the band's lack of a sound mixing board out front in the audience. Early 1977's Stratosfear album proved a radical departure for the chameleon-like trio in that it featured recognizable instruments and melodies. To support the album's U.S. release, Tangerine Dream toured the States in March and April, and though as usual the band's music received virtually zero airplay, almost every concert sold out. That tour also marked the first time the group worked with live visual accompaniment - laser effects by Laser Images, the Los Angeles outfit that created Laserium. Tangerine Dream hoped to widen their North American audience beyond a small but vociferous cult by scoring the music for the film "Sorcerer" at the request of director William Friedkin ("The French Connection," "The Exorcist"). He asked the trio to record the music before filming began so he could shoot in relation to the music. Unfortunately, "Sorcerer" didn't match or better the success of Friedkin's previous efforts - in fact, it was a box-office disaster. But most critics agreed that Tangerine Dream's score - short pieces illuminating the band at their most disciplined - had considerable merit. Another temporary interruption of the band's momentum occurred later in '77, after the recording of their Encore album, when a second tour of the States had to be cut short after two dates because Froese suffered an injury while horseback riding. About that time, Baumann left the band to pursue a solo career. Froese and Franke then added Steve Jolliffe (vocals, keyboards, wind instruments) and Klaus Krieger (drums) and recorded Cyclone, which was followed in March/April '78 by an extensive and sold-out European tour, once again featuring lights by Laserium but also including exclusive lighting effects. That tour was significant in that Tangerine Dream finally broke through to wide popularity in Germany. The experiment with vocals, however, didn't fly very well and the use of a vocalist wasn't repeated until Exit. Aside from the release of Force Majeur (featuring the aforementioned four-man lineup but no vocals), '79 was mainly a year of further solo projects and experimentation. Jolliffe and Krieger exited and Johannes Schmoelling joined Froese and Franke; that lineup has remained the same to the present. Schmoelling was first featured on Tangram, released early in 1980; the LP capped Tangerine Dream's first decade. In February '80, after more than a year of intense negotiations, TD became the first Western rock band (the term is used loosely) ever to play live in East Germany, an event made all the more noteworthy considering the trio's base is on the "wrong" side of the Berlin Wall, at least as far as the East German powers were concerned. Tickets for the band's pair of performances at the Palast de Republique were being exchanged on the East Berlin black market for sums ranging up to the equivalent of $125 (U.S.). The Palast performances also were Schmoelling's first onstage appearances as a member of the group. Upon returning to West Berlin, Tangerine Dream tackled their next project, scoring the Michael Mann Co./Caan Productions film "Thief," starring James Caan in the title role (Frank, a high-powered jewel thief) and Tuesday Weld. Mann, who directed the United Artists release, was referred to TD by William Friedkin, with whom the band had worked on the "Sorcerer" soundtrack. "Their music fit the raw, cutting edge of Frank's character," Mann said at the time. Froese characterized it "a pleasure because we had a finished film to work from. When we did 'Sorcerer' we created the music before a foot of film had been shot. The exotic and shifting moods of 'Thief' fit in perfectly with the kind of music we play, but the project was still a challenge - it was a very powerful film. Making the soundtrack allowed us to play around in the studio a bit and create a piece of music we thought would fit the picture like a glove, yet stand on its own." With the score completed and the film in post-production, Tangerine Dream reached an agreement with Elektra/Asylum for the U.S. release of the trio's records, with the Thief soundtrack opening the deal. That event coincided with TD's November '80 trip to California to participate in a sister city cultural exchange program between Berlin and Los Angeles, tied in with L.A.'s Bicentennial festivities. The band played a special concert at the Santa Monica Civic; it was sold out and considered by organizers to be the musical highpoint of the month-long exchange. (The exchange's host, the Berlin/L.A. Committee, had selected Tangerine Dream to represent the neue musik of Berlin after hearing some of the group's recent recordings and visiting Franke's $1.5 million recording studio/soundstage complex there, where they record. David Bowie is among those who've used the facility and commented favorably. Froese grins as he recalls the Committee's visit: "They saw all our equipment and said, 'Where are we? Are we on the moon?") (The group selected only a few items, relatively speaking, for their Civic date: a Moog 12, a modified Moog keyboard, Project Elektronic trigger selectors, a rhythm computer, an ARP Pro-soloist, a Mellotron 400, an Elka Rhapsody, a Revox echo, a TEF mixer, a Farfisa 400 and an EMV VCS synthesizer.) While in California, Tangerine Dream was also invited to play a concert at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre. Reviewing the show in down beat's March '81 issue, John Diliberto described the event like this: "The band entered the stage in darkness and began an enveloping web of shifting, translucent sound layers. As the lights started to rise the group was revealed to be playing behind and under a black gauze curtain that reflected the lights into soft hues around its folds. The band members were vague figures buried inside three massive synthesizer banks. Instead of creating distance from the audience, Dream enticed them with an aura of subtle mysticism... The mood established, Dream proceeded through two hour-long sets that traversed the range of their instruments from the most formless explorations to pounding rhythm dynamics...the dynamics of Dream's performance were such that they could move from orgiastic, rhythmic intensity into a luminous Keith Jarrett-like piano solo without losing any momentum." Even before "Thief" was released to theaters in March '81 and E/A released the trio's soundtrack LP to coincide, Tangerine Dream's contribution to the film's impact was already being talked about: "Film folk are saying James Caan's new flick 'Thief' has one of the most exciting scores ever done for a film," noted New York Daily News columnist Pat O'Haire on Feb. 27. And the kudos quickly accumulated in the weeks following the film and LP releases. Wrote Carrie Rickey in the Village Voice (3-25-81): "The movie's hallucinogenic score... by Tangerine Dream, functions like adrenalin to power the footage of ice-cool men working with white-hot equipment. Oddly futuristic, the music gives the images urgency: the future is now." Vincent Canby in the New York Times (3-27-81): "The music by Tangerine Dream sounds as if it wanted to have a life of its own, as if it were meant to be an album instead of a soundtrack score..." Rex Reed in the New York Daily News (3-27-81): "(The score is) nailbitingly tense, giving the film an edge and neurotic rhythm as exotically dangerous and scary as the thief's activities." The Los Angeles Times (3-22-81): "...beautiful as Bach..." Newsweek (3-30-81): "...apocalyptic..." Daily Variety (3-20-81): "...superior soundtrack by Tangerine Dream adds immeasurably to the action." College Media Journal (4-27-81): "This deserves to be packaged as a Tangerine Dream album, not a soundtrack... The band proves once again that it reigns supreme over the often misunderstood land of space rock. Thief ranks with T. Dream's best work." And Los Angeles Magazine (5-81): "...one of those rare soundtracks that holds up under its own steam." While all that was going on, TD was back in Berlin working on their 65th film score - "Dead Kids," a Michael Laughlin-directed horror film shot in New Zealand starring Louise Fletcher and Michael Murphy. And as their Thief soundtrack ended its three-month run on the U.S. LP charts late in July, the group was completing sessions for their Exit album at Franke's studio, where Froese explains, "We built everything around the (MCI) mixing console, because we need to have all the instruments quite near. We don't use acoustic instruments much at all, and we don't need an engineer, so we have everything surrounding us, the same way as onstage." Tangerine Dream's most recent live performance took place August 29, 1981 when the trio turned in a special set in front of the Reichstag building in West Berlin as part of a free event focused on the global concerns of nuclear disarmament and world peace. The program, promoted by Aktion Suenezeichen (a highly respected West Berlin organization devoted to reparation activities), was a joint effort between more than 60 national organizations and groups, and more than 100,000 people took part in the rally. "What we are trying to achieve," Froese said on the eve of the show, "is a general change of thought in politics toward nuclear disarmament. After the big one has been dropped, it'll be too late for all of us, except maybe for rats and cockroaches in New York City. We are not doing this show just for fun!" Tangerine Dream plans to perform more conventional concert engagements in Europe, Great Britain and the States during the next several months, and Froese hopes the further exposure will win an ever-widening audience for their music, which he calls "music for all ages. Ours isn't elitist - there may be subtle things going on in our music, but they're not over the listener's heads. The music may be complex, but it's also possible people of varying musical tastes will find it accessible. Ours is timeless music created for all people." ALBUM Discography - United Kingdom, Europe, United States 1970 - Electronic Meditations - Ohr Records in Germany, Ohr import in U.K. and Europe 1971 - Alpha Centauri - (same as above) 1972 - Zeit - (same as above) 1973 - Atem - (same as above) 1974 - Phaedra - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin/Atlantic in U.S. 1975 - Rubycon - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin/Atlantic in U.S.; Virgin Int'l. in U.S. in 1979 (re-release) 1975 - Ricochet - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin Int'l. in U.S. in 1979 1976 - Stratosfear - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin/CBS in U.S. in 1977; Virgin Int'l. in U.S. in 1979 (re-release) 1977 - "Sorcerer" - MCA worldwide 1977 - Encore - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin/CBS in U.S. 1978 - Cyclone - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin Int'l. in U.S. in 1979 1979 - Force Majeur - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Virgin Int'l. in U.S. 1980 - Tangram - Virgin in U.K. and Europe 1981 - "Thief" - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Elektra/Asylum in U.S. 1981 - Exit - Virgin in U.K. and Europe; Elektra/Asylum in U.S. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Eclectic Music is a production of Datta Production and Development 905 97th Street Kenosha, WI 53140 datta@vacs.uwp.wisc.edu This posting was brought to you via computer resources courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Parkside and Datta Production and Development. 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