Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream, this seven time Grammy nominated European band, is a singular phenomenon. As an instrumental band using just high-end modern technology, simultaneously surrounded by a strong rock and roll identity, they will hardly fit into any given musical pigeonhole. Many have tried to copy what's became known after years as �The Tangerine Dream Sound� - so far absolutely unsuccessfully.
They always had their little secrets; how all the musical layers were structured and finally glued together to an undescribable musical experience and how they've managed to always be ahead of any fashionable movement. Tangerine Dream has never produced anything calculated to make the masses jump off their chairs and start screaming Top 40 tunes. Nevertheless, many of the 107 (and counting!) CD Studio, Live and Soundtrack releases by the band, have their own driving hypnotic pieces and it is nearly impossible to escape from the race of fast driving bass notes.
Tangerine Dream has continually striven to intertwine music into feeling on a personal level as opposed to having an audience of mere observers, watching and listening.
Recognizing the here today, gone tomorrow adage of the entertainment industry, TD has survived all the stormy and cloudy days within the international showbiz. It is maybe their great hunger for the unexplainable and unexpected in music, the adventurous journey upon which they've taken themselves and their audiences.
TD music is something not everybody will jump on immediately - but chances are, if you really know them, you love them. When Edgar Froese founded Tangerine Dream back in autumn 1967 - a period when most of the musical world had just gotten its big wake up call from various places around the globe - he already had had visions to discover new sounds and musical techniques. After more than 30 years, through dozens of people joining and leaving the band, Edgar is still provocative and challenging in his uniquely philosophical musical universe. As a man of few words but a wry sense of humor, he has shown that music often can reach places far beyond those found by the descriptions of words.
For many years TD did lots of hunting scores for Hollywood movie productions, a very lucrative second career within the remarkable TD artistic diary. At a time when electronic instruments were widely misunderstood and an independent music industry was virtually non-existent, Tangerine Dream became recognized as the pioneers of a new instrumental music and introduced new sounds, sound effects and production techniques.
Great painters, photographers, actors, architects, writers and dancers have honored Tangerine Dream for the inspiration for their own work they've drawn from listening to the music of TD. Tangerine Dream's reputation in the world of music, their vast experience and professionalism, their unforgettable live performances as well as their record sales give them the freedom to work independently. At the very least it is the best way to keep and develop TD's all time trademark: Originality which can�t be copied or raped.
Lee van Allsteen (Documented Press)