POLAND - THE WARSAW CONCERT*

By the year this album was made, Tangerine Dream, (TD) has been a well known band in movie industry. Their contribution in many movie soundtracks has quite significantly change their musical direction, from a very experimental - full of haunting sound in their 70s album, to a more straightforward dynamic sound. This 1984 live album is one of their landmark in terms of commercial success and fame.

Opened by 'Poland', a 22 minutes song first introduced by an announcer speaks in Polish. Then the audience applause marks the beginning of a very catchy sequence generated loop. For me the song actually made its climax halfway through it, when a dynamic sequence of the loop merges with Edgar Froese's guitar. Afterwards, the song abruptly halts and and moves to a solemn end.

'Tangent' starts with another catchy heroic bass sequence, before a punchy bass line that would probably kick off the the whole audience. Stunning. As in 'Poland', the second part of the song differs from the first one. In 'Tangent', this is marked by a light jazzy popular melodies, their 80's trademark.

Third track, 'Barbakane' is quite easy to forget, because i just sense that it's like listening to a movie soundtrack. But, this album is beautifully finalized by another lengthy piece 'Horizon'. This crafty 20-minute epic starts with abstract sounds, before some touches of beautiful melodies enters the passage. Then, halfway through the song, it moves to another lovely haunting melodies, before climaxing in their stylishly famous 70s bass sequence. Definitely, this track is stunning!

Above all, this is a another great live album from TD, after Ricochet and Encore. If 'Horizon' is the only song in this album, I would probably give 5 stars, but because I couldn't enjoy 'Barbakane' and only halves of 'Tangent' and 'Poland', then 4 stars is fair enough.