Tangerine Dream always seem in tune with the current times. Their early work, from the late 1960s into the 1970s, dabbles in psychedelia and ambient instrumental music that borrows from progressive rock and the moody jazz fusion of Miles Davis. In comparison, their later 1980s work embraces the state-of-the-art keyboards and electronic beats that many synthesizer-heavy artists relied on at the time.
Moreover, their influence has reached artists such as Brian Eno, Steven Wilson, Vangelis, and Hans Zimmer, among countless others. Tangerine Dream undoubtedly influenced Kraftwerk, although you could make a case that, in that case, the influence was a two-way street. Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon’s atmospheric theme to the hit TV series Stranger Things would probably not exist if not for them.
Fortunately, if you’ve never experienced Tangerine Dream’s music directly, it’s the perfect time to take the plunge, as many of their earlier, seminal albums have been released in deluxe anniversary editions. This year sees the deluxe release of Rubycon, their acclaimed sixth studio album, first released in March 1975 and featuring their “classic” lineup of founding member Edgar Froese (the only member to appear on all of their albums until his 2015 death), Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann.
While Tangerine Dream’s first four albums were released on the German experimental label Ohr, they signed with Richard Branson’s then-new Virgin Records in 1973. Branson convinced them to come to England to record their album Phaedra, released in February 1974. That was the beginning of Tangerine Dream’s most influential and creatively fruitful period, also their most financially successful. Phaedra reached 14 on the UK album charts. Branson encouraged them to make the kind of music they wanted, and they delivered with moody, atmospheric instrumental soundscapes, featuring their now-classic sequencer-driven sound, which would influence the Berlin School genre.
Emboldened by their success and creative freedom, Tangerine Dream returned to the studio in January 1975 to record Rubycon, consisting of 17-minute side-long tracks, titled “Rubycon, Part I” and “Rubycon, Part II”. The record employs Mellotron, organ, electric piano, and synthesizers, including VCS3, Moog, and ARP 2600. Anyone who pores over liner notes of experimental and progressive albums of the era will recognize those models as they were standard in the keyboard arsenals of the time. However, Tangerine Dream didn’t jump on stylistic bandwagons; they invented their own music with these state-of-the-art instruments.
As the opening notes of “Rubycon, Part I” are heard, the trio play together in a minimal style, almost maddeningly so. Somewhere around the seven-minute mark, Tangerine Dream’s trademark sequencer makes its first appearance, giving the music a low-key rhythm figure. The waves of sound ebb and flow, which makes perfect sense when you realize that “liquid” is a key characteristic of their music. In a 1975 interview, Franke said, “Liquid, that’s a very important word for our music, each point flowing from one point to another, very smooth, very liquid. You don’t have very big cuts or breaks. It’s like water. Sometimes there’s a waterfall, maybe, but no stop.”
“Rubycon, Part II” is similar in tone, but a ghostly choir – perhaps courtesy of the Mellotron – gives everything a dark, mysterious air. When the sequencers eventually make an appearance, it’s earlier in the track, at about four minutes. Still, that “liquid” characteristic that seems to define so much of their music remains. The appearance of an organ fed through a Leslie speaker cabinet is an accurate timestamp of the era and meshes well with the track’s overall feel. Rounding out the album proper is “Rubycon (Extended Introduction)”, a 15-minute bonus track first heard on the 2019 reissue and mixed by Steven Wilson. The lack of sequencers on this track gives it a more unmoored, ambient feel, which is a welcome addition to the record.
The 50th anniversary edition goes all out with two lengthy, full-concert recordings: one from the Rainbow Theatre in London on 27 October 1974, a couple of months before Rubycon was recorded, and another from the Royal Albert Hall in London on 2 April 1975, during the Rubycon tour. It’s interesting to hear two performances that essentially bookend the Rubycon sessions and chart their progress during this crucial time.
Opening the 1974 concert is a brief introduction by legendary British DJ John Peel, a longtime champion of the band, who enthusiastically speaks of their creative and commercial success, and adds a personal story about listening to Phaedra while driving on the motorway in England on a late night (and really, isn’t that a fantastic way to experience Tangerine Dream?). In this introduction, Peel presents himself not just as a disc jockey and promoter, but more importantly, as a fellow fan.
The concert recordings sound terrific and do a good job of showing the kind of improvisational prowess the trio were bringing to the stage at the time. It doesn’t sound too different from the studio recordings, except for a slightly rawer feel and less studio fussiness. It’s interesting to note that three weeks after the Royal Albert Hall show, Tangerine Dream were playing in Munich, where film director William Friedkin was in the audience, leading him to hire them to provide the soundtrack for his 1977 cult film Sorcerer. Rubycon and its subsequent tour helped usher in a new phase in Tangerine Dream’s history – their popular and prolific film scores.
Tangerine Dream would go on to great success for decades, releasing more than 100 albums in a variety of lineups, and continuing to tour after Froese’s death. Their discography is sonically boundless, but those albums from the early to mid-1970s are not only iconic in the strongest sense of the word; they’re influential beyond compare. The 50th anniversary edition of Rubycon goes a long way in making that perfectly clear.