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Tangerine Dream - Rubycon CD (album) cover

RUBYCON

Tangerine Dream

 

Progressive Electronic

4.24 | 1049 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Kelder
2 stars Pink Floyd Meddle? Anyone?

This is one of the albums that some people call a masterpiece while I seriously do not get it. Yes the sound quality is superb. Yes the album is interesting for its electronics. Yes the album is smooth and creates a magical soundscape. But to me this sounds too much like Pink Floyd Meddle. On side 1 of Rubycon you hear those tension build-ups that are also in One Of These Days from Meddle. Side 2 of Rubycon has a ocean-like feel with seagull sounds just like Echoes of Meddle. Even the artwork looks like the artwork of Meddle! I just can't listen to this record without comparing it to Meddle. Why would you want to listen to an extended version of Meddle made purely by electronic instruments? Pink Floyd already did it 4 years prior.

Enough of Meddle, let's talk purely Tangerine Dream and why I do NOT consider this their masterpiece. This album is very smoothing to the ears but can also be quite boring. It seems like Phaedra was the experimentional album on which they showcased all the different effects their electonics could create. Phaedra was pushing the enveloppe. That is what prog should do and that is what a masterpiece does. Rubycon lacks experimentation and is more like a fraction of Phaedra but more extended over 2 sides (Mike Oldfield much?).

To me Phaedra is their masterpiece while this album is just a mix: take Pink Floyd Meddle, play it with electronic sounds created on Phaedra, mold it into one entire album like Oldfield. And voila, you got yourself a soundscape album like Rubycon. I would rate it for collectors only since it could be relaxing and used as background music.

Kelder | 2/5 |

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