PHAEDRA

For me Phaedra really is the Tang LP to own. The band really got right the perfect mix of spctral eerieness and pulsing, womb-like propulsion. Similar to his solo LP of the same period Aqua, Froese'e mellotron playing is great - texturally balanced and sounding creepy as hell. Very Eldritch and ancient - ghostly chorals from the id. It reminds me - superficially at least if not literally - of The Third Ear Band's Macbeth LP in the way it conjures up the spectral atmosphere of haunted battlefields and mental mists. Its no wonder William Friedkin says on the Sorcerer liner notes that if he had heard Tang before making The Exorcist he would have had them score that film also. Its the perfect amalgamation, sonically speaking - of the 'bodily' with the organic early sequentials and the 'mind' the string-synths and etherals chorals. Along with the next LP Rubycon, and th eoften overlooked Stratosphere, this was TAngerine Dream peak-era of creativity - with Phaedra the bands creative crown. Although many wont' admit it - it was all YES ALL! down hill after Sratosphere. I'm not saying they never made any more good LPs they did - but they never made another LP as good as this one. I hesitate at giving it a 5 is because of the nature of the music's simplicity. But - as their fellow German filmamker genius Friedrich Murnau once said: "All great Art is Simple" - and Phaedra conscious simplicty is genius in itself.