s e a n

Tangerine Dream's second album finds the band still a trio, but with only Edgar Froese remaining from Electronic Meditation. He is joined by Chris Franke and Steve Schroyder. Froese and Franke would go on to form the core of the band. The music truly takes the listener into the dark reaches of space. "Sunrise in the Third System" opens the album, a build-up of majestic organ playing with the aura of tragedy and infinity. After some VCS3 freakouts which open "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola", this same organ sound returns to provide an awesome ambiance. Some flute pokes its way through the titanic wall of synth, like the trace of humanity struggling to survive in the cosmos. Around the ten-minute mark Franke contributes a primal percussion explosion. Apart from a couple of rock-oriented flurries, which break the mood a bit, it is quite good. The track ends abruptly in the middle of this flurry. The title track is an extension of the same vision as before, but because of its length tends to be more dragged out and less focused. Much of it has that same dirge-type feel as Zeit. In all, I find the first half of this album indispensable and the second somewhat less interesting. As the first Froese/Franke collaboration, however, it is definitely worthy of attention. review by Sean McFee — undated —

j o e

The second album by Tangerine Dream marked the entrance of Chris Franke, who would remain a key member of the band for the next ensuing decade and a half, though was originally brought on board for his drumming. Alpha Centauri is sonically pretty much where it stands chronologically: right smack in-between Electronic Meditation and Zeit. It is similar to the former with its caveman-era ambience where sounds churn and grapple with one another, yet closer to the latter in terms of its greater sense of form, astral imagery, and a 'no one can hear you scream' quality entrenched firmly in the bowels of space. Also, much as in "Fauni Gena" from Atem, one is also always cognizant of the tremendous reverb that nonetheless encases the music as one listens, a component of Dieter Dierks' studio were these were recorded. Listening, you feel like you are set about in a humongous terrain with a huge glass container perched over it. "Sunrise in the Third System" makes a stunning opening track, the music you envision might have been playing as God said 'Let there be light.' It begins with pin-pricks from Froese's guitar, like tiny sparks from a flint flying up against a vast, blackened void. From this arises a theramin-like voicing (I'm assuming it's Froese's electric guitar again) crying out and eventually a lonely, gothic organ from Schroyder. For me, "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola" is the first categorically great track to the band's name. The track begins with a howling wind-tunnel of synth, out of which gradually materializes Froese playing a solemn pattern of chords on his guitar in tandem with a softer-edged organ, as traces of flute ride above it all. The dynamics slowly build, with the synth howls peeking in from time to time, until the piece finally climaxes with Dennebourg's flute emerging more prominently, and an explosive tom-tom and cymbal freak-out from Franke. The title track is another glacial twenty-two minutes, given to dreamlike waves of organ and all manner of rising and descending, twirling, whistling, and swooping. The band paints a Guernica-sized sound portrait, one that finds its ultimate end in an ominous broadcast speaker-recitative, more gothic organ, and a sea of ghostly choral vocals. Successfully atmospheric, but like all of the albums they made back then, not an easy listen. Of the pre-Virgin Records albums that Tangerine Dream recorded, Alpha Centauri is the one I would recommend the most. For those with their eyes to the stars. review by Joe McGlinchey — 6-5-06 —

m a t t

Early electronica this is, and that means a certain degree of primitiveness by current standards. It helps to not even think about this as electronica - just imagine Pink Floyd's freakiest space explorations edited to include only the spooky parts. That pretty much sums up Tangerine Dream's second album. Everything other than the 22-minute title track works amazingly well - the tempos plod, but in such a menacing-yet-pretty way that it doesn't matter. Being inside a haunted spaceship as it is inexorably pulled towards a fiery mass is probably the best description that I can give of this music. The title track, however, meanders a bit and loses me in spots. It's not bad, just not as interesting or arresting as the rest of the music. review by Matt P. — 2-3-05 —