Tan-Go: The Best of Tangerine Dream 1990 - 2000

TDI CD026
TDI Music, Box 303340, D-10728, Berlin, Germany
http://www.tangerinedream.org

Reviewed by Mike Mosher
mosher@svsu.edu
Saginaw Valley State University,
University Center MI USA 48710

Tangerine Dream are still around? Three decades ago a German girl in my high school was their enthusiast, endeavoring to shunt her boyfriends' attention from rough local fuzzbox- and feedback-rock purveyors Iggy and the Stooges or the MC5 towards the lush, swirling makeout music of moody teutonic bands Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul and Can.

_Electronic Music_ by Andy Mackay (Minneapolis, 1981) cites Tangerine Dream only as a band whose members have traditional classical music training. The band was founded in Berlin in 1967, and the current incarnation of the band is founder Edgar Froese and his son Jerome on drums. Its sound fits into the revivalist fad of "Electroclash" that embraces synthesizer whoosh as an evocation of the 1980s. Different tracks on the Tan-Go collection sound like Kraftwerk, Kitaro, Jan Hammer, Phil Collins, or Kenny G. There are evocations of anthematic arena-Rock, bracketed with crowd cheers, and other moments sound like movie soundracks, stirring John Williams overtures. Yet it's not all retro, for some tracks have the feel of contemporary dance club music producer William Orbit, electronica or junglee drum n' bass.

In this two-CD collection Tangerine Dream is less distinguished than dependable, understandable since most pop music depends on familiarity more than innovation. The group works skillfully and with pleasant variety but within clearly mapped-out pop territories. This reviewer did not hear anything new, and for all their eclecticism there are few allusions to ectroacoustic composers or compelling currents in that field. And for perhaps that very reason Tangerine Dream is a crowd-pleaser. As it played in the background of my undergraduate 2D Design class, two students requested to borrow it so they could rip a copy of their own.