PHAEDRA

"Phaedra" is Tangerine Dream's fifth album and features Edgar Froese, Christoph Franke and Peter Baumann. It was released almost 40 years ago and these men in electronic music were certainly pioneers in their art. The cover picture is blue and quite minimalistic. I was excited to explore this for me new style of electronics. Earlier I have enjoyed Kraftwerk but this was something new. With big respect for Tangerine Dream's fans and understanding that this record is regarded as very good I began listen and did it twice.

Well, I am surprised. This wasn't like anything I have heard before. But...was it good? "Phaedra" contains a lot of good material. As we all know they where pioneers in synthesizer music and keyboards of any kind. The music sounds computer made, and that was certainly incredible back in 74. But I have very hard to find the essence of this music. It shows a great musical soundscape but that's all. If it only had had a melody, then I had been pleased. I red a review that thought it was symphonic, but how I searched and tried to hear I couldn't find anything symphonic. I will absolutely continue explore electronic music, even though this wasn't enough for me.

So what others consider a masterwork I think is for fans only. But I can't like everything and what is so great with prog archives is that it contains so mnay styles and band(known and unknown) so everybody(almost) should be pleased. Of the album's four tracks I think none is better than the others, well perhaps the last and shortest one: "Sequent' C". Two stars!