ALPHA CENTAURI

Largely experimental and occasionally provocative, 'Alpha Centauri', or the second studio album released by Tangerine Dream, is a 1971 album that bridges a supposed gap between krautrock and electronic music, seeing the German band led by Edgar Froese embarking on a space-themed odyssey developing in peculiar cosmic movements with the predominant use of organ and flute., eventually inspired by the experimental sounds of Pink Floyd's early psychedelic recordings, particularly 'A Saucerful of Secrets' and 'Ummagumma'. Froese and Co. had taken up that chilling cosmic soundscape-creation and elevated it to a hypnotic work where electronic instrumentation prevails and provides an often-ominous but always intriguing musical background as well as a fine space for improvisation, which is what this album is largely about.

And while the remains of the group's krautrock pedigree can still be heard, 'Alpha Centauri' is the first really significant step towards Tangerine Dream's magnificent exploration of texture, timbre, and ambience, all sheathed in cosmic reverence, making this a somewhat transitional recording. Here we have the organ-heavy 'Sunrise in the Third System', a fine tone-setter for the record, the skeletal and tender composition 'Fly and Collision of Comas Sola', which reveals a distant krautrock echo towards its ending, and the first massive movement of sound by Tangerine Dream, the 22-minute title track, a worthy anticipator of the musical form explored more thoroughly on 'Zeit'. Reissues of the album bring along fascinating bonus tracks like the ethereal 'Oszillator Planet Concert' and the rare and abrasive prog single 'Ultima Thule', developing in two parts. All this makes 'Alpha Centauri' incredibly interesting as well as an important piece of the Tangerine Dream puzzle, with its spacey sounds and structure-less experiments.

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