What about ...?
After the death of Edgar Froese (2015), the founding member of Tangerine Dream, it has become very quiet around the electro pioneers. However, they still exist as usual in a new setup. We look back on the impressive path of probably one of the most important representatives of electronic band music.
You just cannot pigeonhole the band Tangerine Dream. Besides Ash Ra Temple and Agitation Free, they have been the pioneers of Krautrock. The style of the Berlin School of electronic music was about by long plays, repetitive and modified sequences and pronounced solos. Synthesizers and Mellotron sounds are used.
In the beginning, one tried to assign the band to Krautrock. Tangerine Dream was also often claimed to be New Age music. This was obvious, since the band was nominated for the Grammy several times in this category. Nevertheless, Froese and his colleagues always distanced themselves from this categorization. Styles such as progressive rock, symphonic music, or a form of ambient were other attempts to classify Tangerine Dream.
It was the year 1967, when Edgar Froese started the band. At the same time, the band performed at student parties and art events, with classical instruments such as violin, flute, drums, bass and vocals. In 1969, the combo separated again. Together with Conny Schnitzler and the multi-instrumentalist and sound pioneer Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream continued as a studio project. In 1970, they published the highly experimental album "Electronic Meditation".
After Schulze joined the Ash Ra temple and Schnitzler started a solo career, Froese himself brought newcomers in. As a keyboardist, he won Steve Schroyder, who experimented madly with synthetic sounds. Unfortunately, he had to leave the band due to increasing drug problems after successful albums, which went down very well in France, in the USA and in Japan. His successor became Peter Baumann, who was responsible for the fact that Tangerine Dream sold almost all of their instruments and got an ultramodern synthesizer.
At the end of the 70s, the electro-band produced important albums. "Zeit und Atem", "Alpha Centauri" and "Phaedra", which was played up and down by radio legend John Peel. Virgin then signed the trio. The uncommon sound of Tangerine Dream has made it to the mainstream.
In the 80s and 90s, it became already a bit quieter around Tangerine Dream. Froese ongoing introduced new musicians and always remained true to his motto: "What I can blow on the flute, I can express in a symphony."
Froese fianlly died in 2015 from the consequences of a pulmonary embolism. One of his last works was the cooperation with Jean Michel Jarre on his collaborative album "Electronica". Currently, Tangerine Dream perform as a trio with T. Quäschning, H. Yamane and U. Schnauss. Froese wanted the band to continue in his sense.
