POLAND - THE WARSAW CONCERT*

Tangerine Dream's magnum opus Zeit was one of the first Krautrock albums I got into: a dream- dipped exodus through an empty, haunted wasteland that manages to both exhaust and exhilarate. This live album was recorded twelve years later and shows that Edgar Froese and colleagues were by no means stuck in the introspective 70s. While there are plenty of live TD albums to choose from (7 official releases plus a clutch from their archive), there is an energy and momentum here that belies the extensive history of this seminal electronic band. As is the case for any long-running artist, many fans of long standing will find later music that differs from what they fell in love with dispensable (at best) or rubbish (at least generous). That observation definitely applies here: an experienced fan is unlikely to swap Poland for Pergamon, for instance, yet this concert does excite - albeit in an grooving automotive sort of way. The long tracks (only one side has more than a single title) build and develop with repetitive musical themes and insistent rhythms. The liner notes suggest the trio were rather worried about the impact of the sub-zero temperatures on instruments and musicians alike but they needn't have worried. This concert generates its own heat. www.vinylconnection.com.au