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 the original recordings.
Many of the ‘classic’ tracks that have been "tangenized" are completely new re-recordings like Monolight and Desert Dream played with modern equipment and according to the TD style of the mid-90's. I think Phaedra, in particular, is very different to the original – a bit too different perhaps, though I can’t find a single ‘bad’ track in any of the disks, even the "tangenized" ones.
The box includes a 74-page booklet, filled with quite large sized photographs of various landscapes and computer graphics that don’t appear to have any obvious relevance to each other or the text. The booklet also contains extensive text by Edgar Froese about the music of TD.
The whole box gives the humble TD fan a nice retrospective look at the ‘virgin years’. if you’re looking for a good, all round complication album by Tangerine Dream, this is a good buy. I prefer the I-Box, but only as it has some unique tracks I really like.
The only downside to this package is the price. I paid 35 pounds about 5 years ago, which is a bit steep, though a friend bought his for 25 pounds last year in a small London music shop. Despite getting five disks and a nice booklet, is it worth an average price of 30 quid? I think so.
One interesting fact in the booklet; according to the credits section, two ex-TD members were involved with the Tangents project: Johannes Schmoelling (digital pre-mastering) and Ralf Wadephul (analogue cutting and the analogue/digital transfer). (thanks to Voices in the net for help with some details)
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