Yes Tales of Topographic Ocean by Covach

Ha. Got me.

 

I missed Tales From Topographic Oceans when it first came out because I couldn't afford it on my meager apprentice's pay. So for me it came after Relayer, not Close To The Edit Edge, which I think set me up better to take an instant liking to it, eventhough by then it's notoriety of being pretentious and inpenitrable was well known, but it didn't - it took a while.

 

I think it is paced and balanced perfectly, I don't like pieces of music that are crammed full of musical ideas that don't link together, I like ones that grow and develop - at a minimalistic level that's what Phillip Glass and Steve Reich do, at a more complex level that's what Mike Oldfield did on his pastoral pieces and that's what Tangerine Dream do best, damit - that's even what Echoes is all about.

 

And I think that TFTO achieves that, whether by accident or design I'm not sure - is the "padding" a band bereft of ideas or is it a carefully crafted aural landscape (echoing Roger Dean's cover painting, which is also a "constructed" landscape collaged together from different ideas from himself and each band member) - I'm inclined to think it is the later, I think Anderson and Howe (and Eddie Offord) are wise enough and sharp enough to realise that, but I honestly don't think it matters either way because it works.

 

If you're setting off for a marathon you don't want to do the whole thing at a frantic sprint, so if TFTO were the equivalent of an 80 minute Gates of Delirium then I think listener fatigue would have set in very rapidly and all the critisisms would be justified, but as it is you don't get that (at least I don't, but maybe I have an abnormally high attention span). Stick this on your iPod and play it from beginning to end without the unwanted excercise-break where you have to get up and flip over the LP or change the CD and it can keep your attention without your mind wandering anywhere excpet where the music takes you, especially with the up-lift you get from hearing Nous Sommes du Soleil at the end of the journey.

 

My only crit of the whole thing is for the remastered CD - the two extra versions of Dance and Ancient are unnecessary and spoil Ritial's perfect ending.

 

So to answer your question (finally!) Yes No - modern bands seem to take this as the blue-print of what not to do, whereas it should be the master-plan of how to do things right.