Phaedra
A huge departure for Tangerine Dream when the drums and percussion were done away with and sequencers took over, also their first release for Virgin ( arguably their best, along with Rubycon and Richochet ).
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Edgar Froese: Mellotron 400 Mellotron Mark 5 (new model with double tape set and double keyboard), Farfisa 400 double keyboard organ, Farfisa electric piano, VCS3 synthesizer with EMS sequenzer and EMS keyboard, Moog sequenzer.
Peter Baumann: Farfisa double keyboard organ (first model) Farfisa organ , Fender Rhodes electric piano, Mellotron 400, Elka electric string organ, two AKS synthesizers with touch keyboards (EMS), ARP synthesizer 2600 with keyboard, Moog sequenzer.
Christoph Franke: Modified AKS synthesizer (EMS), Elka electronic string organ, two Moog 300 P synthesizers (big models) with two 4-Moog synthesizers (modified), ARP 3600, Farfisa organ Professional model, Mellotron 400, special-built computer-operated rhythm controller.
Side one: Phaedra
In classical Greek literature, Phaedra was a lady who fell in
love with her stepson. The story was translated into a French
classic by Racine and has recently been rewritten in an Indian
colonial setting for the London stage.
No attempt is made on the record to follow the story with any
kind of musical programme, though Edgar Froese once told me that he
had the poetic atmosphere of the play very much in mind when they
were composing the music.
The very slow beginning is in fact a very rapid sequence of
notes from Franke on the Moog.
"It is a very soft, slow, cloudy beginning, starting very
outside of the room, made with echo plates, and then it comes into
the room a little bit, going drier and drier, and the electric
piano from Peter makes some slow counterpoints to it."
As the sequence is slowed down a rhythm pattern becomes
evident and the exact notes are perceptible. Baumann's piano notes
and chords become more and more bell-like. As the pitch and speed
of the rhythm rises and goes more into echo, Froese enters on
voice-tape Mellotron playing very high chords and the rhythm goes
into tape delay, doubling the apparent speed of the rhythm as every
note is repeated. The rhythmic pattern is taken over by Froese, on
guitar. "Over this I made some glass noises with the Moog."
The Moog takes back the rhythm sequence and simplifies it down
to three tones, to which Franke adds notes one by one, while Froese
plays phased long chords on Mellotron strings-tapes. Franke adds a
second rhythm sequence, three times as quick as the main rhythm,
while he overdubs a similar sequence on organ. This is the first
overdub to be heard so far.
The basic rhythm reasserts itself once again, with washes of
phased string chords from the Mellotron, and then a high, crying
note from Baumann's flute, jumping octaves, up and down, while the
intensity of the Revox echo delay on the sequence is changed
constantly, as well as the exact sequence of the notes.
Very low bass chords on the Moog underpin the sequence which
changes pitch and rises to a climax, while Baumann's flute notes
sail in and out of the mix, together with bottleneck guitar sounds
from Froese.
Baumann's synthi has added a percussive pattern of white noise
sounds in a similar rhythm to the sequence on the Moog, which rises
higher and higher as the colour of Baumann's pattern is altered.
The rhythm rises to a climax and Froese comes in again with very
high voice-tapes on the Mellotron, while the rhythm hits its
highest point and repeats over and over. Froese resolves the climax
with final Mellotron chords and a long beat on the tam-tam from
Franke.
"That's not a gong, it's a tam-tam like Stockhausen used in
'Kontakte'. It has an unvoiced sound. A gong has a little hill in
the middle and that gives it a voice. Then I try to make the same
sound like the tam-tam with generators and filters which is lying
now under everything. A tam-tam has a decay but I want to hold the
sound so I made it on the Moog. And I change the colour of the
noise sound with a filter bank, which I can do by pressing a key.
Otherwise I would need a whole bank of different natural
instruments to produce these sounds."
Baumann's phased piano interjects over these basic gong
sounds, and then he produces a new sound on the synthi which Franke
describes as "a very spacey sound, like a dog in the desert, which
I like very much".
Froese's voice tapes sing out over more Moog gong sounds,
changing in pitch as Baumann's dog noises return, followed by his
organ and heavy string chords from Froese replace the voice, with
electric piano chords. The piece moves to a slow, almost heavy
conclusion.
Side Two
"The first piece is mainly a Mellotron piece from Edgar, with some added wind noise from Peter's synthesizer. I don't play anything on that piece. The second piece we made all together and the third piece was made by Peter with very long and different tape delays, played with this little wood flute, a recorder, like the young people are learning at school"
Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares
"This first thing from Edgar is a very harmonic piece,
starting with wind noise. They are mainly minor chords and I get
the impression of going walking into a very empty countryside, in
the dark maybe."
The sound of the Mellotron and the wind noise are both phased,
moving their presence about the stereo image. Later this phasing is
controlled by a generator which creates a flutter on the Mellotron
sound.
After a few Fender Rhodes piano chords from Baumann, the
Mellotron rises to its climax and subsides into silence, the wind
noise rises in power to be joined by twittering voltage controlled
oscillator sounds on a VCS3 synthesizer.
Movements of a Visionary
Baumann begins by feeding his voice into a synthesizer, to
which high-pitched noises are added, joined after a while by a fast
sequence of notes on Franke's Moog. "It is several generators given
into a ring modulator which multiples the frequencies and you get
anharmonic overtones such as you have in all percussive instruments
like a glockenspiel or xylophone or a vibraphone or gongs or drums.
It means that the steps from one overtone and the next are not in
a proportion like one to two to three to four. If you hit a glass
you get anharmonic sound. It is the difference between a violin and
a church bell. It sounds here a little like a marimba."
The sequence is echoed by Baumann's synthi and organ, and
Froese plays very high notes on Lowry organ. Baumann interjects
echoed chords on a Davoli piano. The whole thing seems to carry on
much longer than the amount of creativity merits, even though it is
actually quite short.
"In fact I don't like this side very much because it's not as
well done as it could be. It was our first recording in England and
we couldn't take as much time as we liked, The next record was much
better because we took more time.
"The thing is that we use the complete studio as an
instrument, so it is not possible for us to go into the studio and
play only pieces we have rehearsed before. We make the concept and
composings there in the studio. For instance, the mixing for us is
a real creative thing and the mixing board is an instrument with
which you control the dynamics, which are an important part of
music."
Sequent C'
"That's just Peter playing. It's like a fugue made with a very long delay so after maybe 20 seconds he can play a new melody line over the old line. It goes a little in the Terry Riley way of producing music which I like, in fact, very much. I like this piece very much. I think it's a very beautiful end for this record."
The bulk of this page is taken from the 1975 Tour Program.