WAVELENGTH (OST)

In general, most of the many Tangerine Dream soundtracks work better as spooky/spacey background music for films, than they do as stand-alone albums. (This is hardly surprising, given their raison d'être.) There are exceptions (SORCERER and THIEF make pretty good additions to a fan's collection), but as a rule, individual tracks are often shorter, with abrupt fadeouts which tend to give the soundtracks a somewhat jarring feel overall. Just as you might start to get into the mood of a selection, it fades quickly away after a mere one to two-minute stay.

This disjointed character is also much the case with WAVELENGTH, the soundtrack from an obscure 1983 science fiction film about aliens stranded in the Mojave Desert. The music itself is worthwhile; it's typical mid-period TD from the Froese, Franke and Schmoelling lineup, but with 16 tracks, many are simply too short to establish the ambiance that the synth band's longer selections so ably convey. There's also a smattering of material lifted or re-created from then-recent studio works, so not everything you'll hear will be new. I can't be bothered doing the "forensic" work needed to identify specific source albums and tracks, but serious fans will recognize the exhumed material when they hear it.

Still, WAVELENGTH has just enough new and interesting material to make it worth adding to the collection of the committed TD follower. Sometime fans or those new to the band, however, would do better with one of the many excellent classic studio albums from the 70s to early 80s.