LE PARC

This is a really good collection of Tangerine Dream 'ditties'.Is there such a thing as a TD album that could be played on the radio?? Well Yes! and this is it!! But is that a bad thing? Well actually no is the surprising answer.All the peices are lovingly crafted in the best Dream tradition,they just happen to be a little shorter than what you would normally expect.My favourites here are 'L.A. Streethawk ' which has some impressive sequencing at high tempo and the lush 'Yellowstone Park' featuring none other than Clare Torry ,the lady who made that memorable contribution to 'Dark Side Of The Moon' all those years previous.Overall this is good although TD still had a few more peaks to scale with 'Underwater Sunlight' and 'Tyger' before dropping into the creative abyss that was to follow.

This album corresponds to the end of the Schmoelling-era. I guess the album concept is to create a specific atmosphere for some internationally know Parks in the World. So, the tracks are short. The record contains many drum beats and is rather rythmic. Most of the tracks are interesting, and they offer some catchy and addictive elements. Maybe some Tangerine Dream fans will find this record to be too pop oriented; but one thing is sure: this album is certainly not bad: I find it better than most of the Tangerine Dream's film music. On the graceful & New Age "Yellowstone Park" track, the most mellow & floating one, reminding me slightly the Hyperborea track, the guest vocalist is Clare Torry (Pink Floyd's Great gig in the sky).

The most recent TD album I have heard (or own, for that matter). It's got a couple of good tracks, most notably "Yellowstone Park". Sometimes being too prolific is bad for a band's success, creative and economic. In other words, I'm sure a lot of fans turned their backs on TD (and Klaus Schulze) because there was just so much product being put out, and all of it containing a lot of filler.

Two feet in the big, "infect" musical business: I'm a huge fan of TD's first era (I mean from their first "electronic meditation" to "green desert"). The sequencers / analog synth period of the "virgin" years was really unequal with some honest works (Phaedra, Rubycon, Stratosfear) and passable recordings (White Eagle, Exit). but sorry if I consider the lack of inspiration and the commercial orientated electronic sounds progressively adopted by the band, the second part of the 80's marks the death of the band. This album is puerile, totally inconsistent, articulated into a bunch of massive synth pieces with insistent electronic pulses in the background. Conceptually the album's thematic is focused around famous parks of the world (Yellowstone...). The idea was original and could definitely be illustrated with TD music but the guys weren't at the top of creativity for this one; when you close the eyes and reflect, no mental landscapes appear, you just have a terrible headache. It sounds as electronic "garbage", ephemeral ambient music with no style and no progressive ideas. A terribly bad album but wait, it's not their worst, you have the summit of sloppy, commercial & mainstream synth music with the ultimately boring "Optical race".

Three stars max! It was obvious at the time this album came out that Tangerine Dream were past their prime, although I do agree that's somewhat debatable. This album is very different from say Pheadra and a polar opposite to Zeit. While those two albums were more experimental and elaborate, this album is, on the other hand, full of short, quirky, and somewhat catchy tracks, each named after a certain park (hence the title of the album).

The most memorable tracks here are "Central Park," a very upbeat techno piece, "Hyde Park," and "Yellowstone Park." "Central Park" sounds like it could have easily been used on the Risky Business soundtrack. "Hyde Park" is probably my favorite track on the album; the techno influence is obviously there, but this track actually keeps my attention more than any of the other's, as it is incredibly catchy and pretty epic, considering the length. "Yellowstone Park" is probably the favorite for most; it closes the album off quite nicely with the elegant voice of Clare Torry.

I may sound a bit harsh in my review, but in all honesty, Tangerine Dream have produced MUCH better work than this. This isn't a good album to start out with as it would give the listener a wrong impression of what Tangerine Dream really could pull off. There are some nice pieces here, and they are catchy, so if you like catchy, rythmic, electronica which is on the verge of New Age at times, you'll most likely enjoy this album. However, as a Tangerine Dream album I can only award it three stars, and that's being generous in my eyes. I look forward to hearing their next studio album, Underwater Sunlight, as it is supposed to be an improvement on this release.

1985 was the year Le Parc was released. It is important to mention that by this stage TD had already passed their first peak as a band. IMO this peak was made when Tangram was released in 1980. From here the majority of Tangerine Dream's work in the 1980's consisted of material with shorter tracks, more soundtrack work. I firmly believe TD were evolving again to more hights at this mid 80's point, hence Le Parc an offspring of this period.

Not nearly as bad as some critics make out there are some fine moments. The first song 'Bois De Boulogne' based on the park in Paris gets the album off to a fine start. Again not long tracks but as TD music goes more in the easy listening category. ' Central Park' the next track just doesn't quite deliver the goods but ' Gaudi Park' returns to form with great moods depicted of the Barcelona locale. Other strong pieces are the 'Zen Garden', understandably hypnotic and ' Yellow Stone Park ( Rocky Mountains)', this has the usual keyboard crescendo's but also some poignant Floyd like backing vocals. A good album but probably for collectors only. Two and a half stars.

It is now clear that the band has evolved towards a more electro beat music. Should I say commercial? Maybe.

Still, the concept of this album is original (while other giants had just no concept at all during these early mid eighties). Having been in five of those "parks", it is quite a ride for me. And "Boulogne" opens the album brilliantly. It is different music of course than the one we could experienced ten years prior this release, but not so much when you listen to the wonderful closing section.

I can understand that when "Central Park" starts, lots of TD fans must have been shocked (in the same way than they were with "Cyclone"). This track almost starts as a "Santana" one. It is true to say that these beats have little to do with a classic TD track and it does not convey ant particular feeling about Central Park (same applies to "Gaudi").

There are some more ambient and enjoyable tracks as well. The next two belong to this category. I particularly like "Zen Garden" which title is quite appropriate. Even if it is one of the parks I haven't been so far, I can easily feel the quietness of an Asian piece of untouched land. It could have referred to some places in Vietnam were I went without any problem. The second best IMO.

I would have expected something more appropriate for "Hyde Park" and the great Albert Hall that sits (almost) there.

This album closes brilliantly as it opened: "Yellowstone..." is a dramatic theme and features some languishing vocalizing parts. Beautiful. Period.

This album can't compete with the best of their works but it is again a decent achievement. If you exclude some soundtrack albums released by then, this one contains much more tracks than average. But I presume that the mood was not to write another great epic.

The three star rating is maybe on the higher end but since there are no other option on PA, this is it (five out of ten really). It would also have better been titled "Les Parcs" though. But this is pure French terminology?

Dreadful little nonentities of tunes which clearly define the slump that Tangerine Dream were entering. Considering how good 'Poland' was, I was surprised at how poor an effort this was.

It's a damn sight better than the the dreadful 'Tiger' from '87, nowhere near as good as the final 'Hurrah' from the band with 'Underwater Sunlight'' and basically awful compared with their previous album 'Poland' from '84. Claire Torry ( Yes, the same one from 'Dark Side!') contributes vocals to a couple of tunes but these tunes are absolutely rotten. It's almost as if Edgar Froese freezes when trying to accomodate a vocalist. A sorry follow up to 'Poland' , but don't worry there's one good album left from TD in the form of 'Underwater Sunlight'. Cheesetastic...

It's probably because of the addiction to soundtracks that even when they have the possibility to make a new studio album without the constraint of images to comment, TD decide to adopt a concept and release an album of short (for their standard) tracks each dedicated to parks in the world.

The result is not bad, surely better than some soundtracks of the same period. There are highlights and even if the sounds used and the compositions sound very 80s, the album flows well.

Diferently from the pink period, this is an album that can be left playing in the background. It's so easy that doesn't require much attention. However there is a trio of tracks in the middle that deserve a bit more attention : Tiergarten, Zen Garden and Le Parc.

There's few more to say. It's just good electronic music that doesn't say anything about the band and what is clearly missed is the use of square waves sounds that's almost disappeared and survives only in "The Cliffs Of Sidney" that sounds "already listened".

In brief it's a non-essential album. I would rate it one star less becauise of the very insignificant sleeve design but it's good enough for the average 3 stars.

Last studio album with Johannes Schmoelling, "Le Parc" definitely marks a rupture with the other previous TANGERINE DREAM releases from this era. Completely different from "Hyperborea" and "Poland", this record is inspired by their recent movies soundtracks. No long epic here, just 9 short melodic pieces with heterogeneous ambiances, more or less inspired. The sound has turned much more 80's friendly and commercial, but also incorporates a little touch of "world music" synth sonorities.

As in some of their previous albums, the tracks name are inspired by the places the band visited while travelling. From the first seconds of "Bois De Boulogne", you can hear the change: TANGERINE DREAM has embraced the eighties. In fact, this both melodic and ambient opening is quite nice. "Central Park" is dynamic and could have well suited a police action movie scene. On the contrary, "Gaudi Park" and "Tiergarten" are rather dull and flat. The peaceful atmospheric "Zen Garden" features japanese sonorities and is prettily relaxing.

This makes an even more abrupt transition with the energic title track. This tune is in fact the opening soundtrack for the U.S. TV show Streethawk. Energic, catchy, but a bit out of place in this album, and... the relation between a park and a futuristic motorbike? Not much to say about the strange and average "Hyde Park" and "The Cliffs Of Sydney". The dreamy end track "Yellowstone Park" is more interesting. First, it features Clare Torry, the vocalist of PINK FLOYD's "The Great Gig in the Sky". Second, it contains "world music" sonorities. Third, it's an unexpected good surprise to conclude this record.

"Le Parc" is definitely an odd and unequal patchwork, the last and weakest TANGERINE DREAM album of the Schmoelling-era. However, if you're not too much allergic to the eighties, the music is overall nice and enjoyable.

Review Nº 90

After almost a hundred reviews on Progarchives, I finally decided to review an album of Tangerine Dream. However, my real intentions were very far of doing so right now. Anyway, when I decided to start reviewing Tangerine Dream's albums, it never crossed my mind start with this album, "Le Parc". The normal thing to do would be to start by their debut studio album "Electronic Meditation" released in 1970, by their fifth studio album "Phaedra" released in 1974, by their sixth studio album "Rubycon" released in 1975 or by their debut live album "Ricochet" released in 1975. The last three albums mentioned by me, are in general considered the best and most important albums of the very vast and interesting career of Tangerine Dream. So, definitely, never begin with "Le Parc". This is even more evident, to me, because those three albums represented my introduction to the group and to the progressive electronic music too.

So, why to start with "Le Parc"? In reality, there's only one reason, Tiegarten Park in Berlin. Why? It's very simple. Some time ago, it was decided by a group of friends of mine, we usually do an annual trip together, that our next trip would be Berlin. Then, while I was planning that trip, I saw the name of Tiegarten Park on the map and suddenly it comes to my mind "Le Parc" of Tangerine Dream, because the album has a track with the same name dedicated to that park. It was very curious, because in the past, when we did two other trips to London and Paris, the names of Hyde Park in London and Le Bois de Boulogne in Paris, despite being also the names of two other tracks of the album, never came to my mind, then. So and somehow, this is a truly and unexpected review. Anyway, here it is, just right now.

So, after these initial considerations let's write some lines about Tangerine Dream. Tangerine Dream was a group formed in Berlin by guitarist Edgar Froese, keyboardist Conrad Schnitzler and percussionist Klaus Schulze. They were among the earliest conscious explorers of a new musical universe opened by electronic instruments. Tangerine Dream's music was born as a psychedelic journey in the heavens, and aided by new electronic keyboards, transformed into a contemplative survey of the universe. By borrowing from impressionistic painting, which the meeting between Edgar Froese and Salvador Dali was very influential and inspiring to Froese to pursue a more experimental direction, with his music, from ecclesiastic music, from the minimalist avant-garde and from Eastern transcendental philosophy. Tangerine Dream invented the "kosmische musik", one of the most influential musical genres of all times.

About "Le Parc", it's the twenty-first studio album of Tangerine Dream and was released in 1985. It's actually a conceptual album with nine tracks. As its name indicates, all the nine tracks attempt to capture the moods of various city parks from around the world. So we have "Bois De Boulogne" in Paris, "Central Park" in New York, "Gaudi Park" Guell Garden in Barcelona, "Tiergarten" in Berlin, "Zen Garden" Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, "Le Parc" Streethawk in Los Angeles, "Hyde Park" in London, "The Cliffs Of Sidney" in Sydney and "Yellowstone Park" in Rock Mountains.

The tracks on "Le Parc" are shorter and more compact than usual on Tangerine Dream's albums and the focus is on the mood generated by the cities where the parks are located. On "Le Parc", the simple rhythmic accents keep time with economical and compact keyboard works that issues the scale, so that the plate as a balanced collection of thoughtful, may apply instrumentals, short for conditions of the electronic genre. All I can say is that it works fine as background music as to pay it any attention at all reveals how gossamer-thin and insubstantial it actually is. So, if you feel uptight or stressed, just put this CD on your player and after 45 minutes you'll still feel relaxed again. But play it at the maximum volume. The title track "Le Parc" was used as the theme for the short lived U.S. television series "Street Hawk". "Yellowstone Park" includes a vocal theme sung by Clare Torry, the lady known because Pink Floyd's "Great Gig In The Sky" from their album "The Dark Side Of The Moon". As complementary information, "Le Parc" marked Tangerine Dream's last studio release with Johannes Schmoelling. He left the group in 1985 after eleven studio albums inside the band. In my opinion, "Tangram", "Exit" and "Hyperborea" are his best contributions to the band.

Conclusion: As I wrote before, "Le Parc" is a non consensual album of Tangerine Dream, because is very popish and is far from their initial musical path. This is a very commercial album with shorter tracks and very melodic tendencies, which to me sounds like small vignettes to short films. Well maybe that's the case, since the titles are from places all over the world. It seems to me as something you expect to here as a soundtrack to some BBC's great nature films, in the same vein of some works from Vangelis. So friends of early Tangerine Dream, where the music was filled around noises and long sweeping synthesizers themes, don't go here. For friends of later Vangelis, try it out, because it might fit your taste. "Le Parc" is interesting for those who appreciate the accessible mainstream oriented electronic music.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

When I say how Tangerine Dream was quick to enter the 1980s with Force Majeure, Edgar's solo album Stuntman, and Tangram, I am obviously referring to the early '80s, more in tuned with the era perhaps up to 1983. 1985's Le Parc, their last non-soundtrack album with Johannes Schmoelling clearly shows TD full-on 1980s. I mean the era of the decade people most stereotypically associate with that decade: drum machines, digital synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX-7, that sort of thing. The sequencers have been completely ditched, I guess the band was happier having more lightweight and portable gear. The album is named Le Parc, and no surprise each song title should bear the name of certain parks around the world, except for the title track, which became the theme song for a short-lived TV series called Streethawk (imagine Airwolf if it were a motorcycle). I really don't know what to say, it screams '80s. The Streethawk theme song no doubt was inspired by Sylvester Levay's theme to Airwolf, that similar '80s electronic vibe. "Zen Garden", unsurprisingly has a rather Japanese feel to it. On some songs, I was rather surprised to hear that '70s Solina string synths among that '80s sounds. To be honest, it doesn't sound too distinct from incidental music heard on movies and television, but then the band had been scoring for quite a few films by this time. To this day, I find this just plain OK. I mean, put Le Parc up against classics from a decade before like Phaedra, Rubycon, and Ricochet and this totally crashes and burns. I hate to be so hard on the band, but this was a big reminder that, when I was around 16, at the end of the '80s when I first heard of Tangerine Dream, I failed to understand what the big deal about these guys were, because I was hearing stuff like this (or their following albums up to Optical Race) on a local public radio station. I still own the album, but this band simply fell victim to the 1980s. It's like they could have backed Phil Collins by this point. It sold tons better than Zeit, I'm sure of that.

This was my first Tangerine Dream album, even though it is number 26 in line of albums that had previously been released by TD. The album consists of 9 short tracks (short as compared to most of their previous work). The songs are all inspired by worldwide parks, which is really a great idea. However, sometimes this works well and at others it doesn't.

Now the album isn't a complete failure as some reviews here tend to signify. It just isn't the TD of the past. Understandably, TD tried to make their music appropriate for the decade it was produced, the 80s. So it takes on some faster beats, some slightly new wave-ish sounds and so on. But, surprisingly enough, it doesn't always sound as dated as you would expect.

The first track is "Bois de Boulogne" and it opens the album on a high note. It is a fast tempo song with nothing annoying about it and a very memorable hook. "Central Park" however, does sound somewhat dated to me and an almost techo-disco which you might expect here. "Gaudi Park" has a nice beat and bass line that runs rapidly through the song almost giving it a softcore industrial sound as synths flow around the running rhythm. This one is better. Fourth in line is "Tiergarten", which starts out soft with background noises of children playing and a nice electronic piano. A whistling synth and drums join in later. It is a pleasant song, not too annoying, but commercial and almost New Age sounding and very melodic. It's not a complete write off though. "Zen Garden" is a favorite of mine and reminiscent of older TD. It starts with wind and birds in the background and a hard percussive, but sustained "hit" in the synth bass which slowly drops it's tone as it is sustained and this repeats throughout. I love this sound and synths of all kinds play around this. No rhythm in this one. A female voice singing wordless vocals joins in also. Inspired by the sounds of Japanese music and very pensive and beautiful.

Next up comes the title track "Le Parc". It starts up the second side with a jet flying overhead and immediately a fast beat starts up and synths play around it. This one takes on the sound of European disco/techno, with a very stately melody. It is very commercial sounding, and a little dated, but it brings back memories of Kraftwerk from the same decade. "Hyde Park" begins with some strange clicking sounds. The thumping mid tempo bass starts and provides the basis for the song. Synths are melodic and there are some orchestral sounding "hits" and synth chord progressions throughout that are indicative of the decade, but it's not overly annoying. "The Cliffs of Sydney" actually breaks the 5 minute mark. This one is also European sounding with a throbbing mid tempo bass and then fluttering percussion around that. I like the sound of the main melody in that it sounds like guitar from the old Italian westerns. This rhythm stops halfway through and synths carry the action for a while before it starts up again with the same melody. "Yellowstone Park" is the highlight of the album at over 6 minutes. It starts out with pan flutes and a mysterious sustained orchestral sound before synths start joining in. A slow tribal rhythm begins and wordless vocals from the one of the same singers of "The Great Gig in the Sky" (Dark Side of the Moon). Pan Flutes start again and carry the main motif giving it a Native American sound. A nice, floating tune. You can picture the clouds over the high mountains, the rivers and lakes of the park with hawks and eagles soaring, a buffalo or two loitering near the water, and so on. Yes I've been there a lot of times, and the tune really fits the park.

So, overall , this is a very good TD release, better than what most have rated it at. No, it's not as good as earlier TD, but it holds a nostalgic spot for me because I purchased it when it was first released. I still own the record and love it for it's high points which is worth keeping it around. And it has very nice cover art. Do you have to have it? No, but I would recommend it for easy relaxing listening at least, especially for "Zen Garden", "The Cliffs of Sydney" and "Yellowstone Park". Good, not essential, 3 stars.

Hailing from an era when Tangerine Dream were arguably focusing on movie soundtracks far more than studio albums, Le Parc is an exception to that rule (though even then, some of the selections here would be used as soundtrack work). Their mid-1980s transformation here is largely complete; the spacey sounds of their 1970s releases are largely absent, and in its place are sleek, then-modern digital synthesisers, a cool cyberpunk atmosphere, and catchy synthpop-esque cadences, but with sufficient flashes of inventiveness to make this all seem compelling and original rather than blandly generic. Provided you aren't averse to shorter compositions and a fairly light, accessible tone, there's a lot to enjoy here.