Hollywood Years Vol.2, The - Tangerine Dream

Advantages: One of the best 'electronic' albums ever
Disadvantages: It is somewhat short

...After the success of their 1974 release "Phaedra", Tangerine Dream released their last organic sounding masterpiece "Rubycon", before becoming a more conventional sounding electronic band. To try and describe the purely instrumental music on this album is difficult. Most people regard electronic music as pings, beeps and other more farty sounds, but here the early synthesisers and manipulated sounds create a wash of noise somewhat like the aural equivalent of a watercolour. The first piece (Rubycon Part One) sounds like a life-cycle of some alien sound creature. The beginning with its gong like sounds conjuring up something stirring in a dark damp cave before bursting into life in the sunshine with eerie bird-like calling. A pulsing sequencer sound builds up to carry our creature onwards through layers of sounds forming, swirling... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Unreleased tracks
Disadvantages: Price, some 're-mixing'

...As you may have already guessed, this is a ‘best of’ album. As Tangerine Dream have been around for the past 40 years, you don’t need to be a fan to know there are lots of these compilation albums around – some good, some so bad you feel embarrassed to look at the cover let alone play it. ‘Tangents’ is certainly one of the best. The tracks are from a wide range of studio and sound track albums; some classic ones like Ricochet, White Eagle and Exit, to some quite rare and difficult to find tracks (Wavelength and Flashpoint). Disk 5 contains a lot of previously unreleased tracks, which makes a very useful added bonus, and makes the price worthwhile. Many of the tracks are just excerpts of long single track albums like Ricochet, but some are re-mixed, or "tangenized", as some fans call it. Some of them are quite different to... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Live TD music
Disadvantages: Only half a concert

...I bought this album about two years ago with some other TD albums. It’s been in my ‘wanted’ list for some time. Unfortunately, after listening to it, I was sadly disappointed. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as I imagined it to be. I have recently listened to this after quite some time. In fact, I think this is only my third time of listening to it. It is supposedly the first release of the so-called "Tangerine Dream Classics Edition", released in 1999, featuring the first part of the Sydney concert. The rest of the concert (Soho Man 2 perhaps) has never, as yet, been released. A bootleg LP version called ‘Leprous Appearance On Wednesday’ appeared in 1984 and was re-released in CD format in 1993, featuring the same part of this concert. When listening to the bootleg, it’s obvious that Soho Man has been altered to obtain better... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful