TANGRAM

Force Majeure clearly shows the band starting to adopt a more modern '80s sound, but it still retained a lot of the '70s elements too, as it was recorded late summer of 1978, but not released until February 1979. Edgar Froese's solo album Stuntman made no bones about have a much more modern, up-to-date sound, more in tune with the next decade (the 1980s), so obviously people who have an aversion to the 1980s avoided Stuntman. Tangram is the fully modernizing of Tangerine Dream's sound for the '80s, no doubt inspired by Stuntman (obviously using a lot of the same gear from that album). Johannes Schmoelling was brought in, bringing them back to the more traditional electronic trio format. So it's basically a modernized version of the TD sound, with polyphonic synthesizers (and proto-digital synths like the PPG 360), and the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano. The sequencers are still being used to let you know this is Tangerine Dream, and like before, there are more calm pieces when they're not using sequencer. I don't know what to say, this just sounds like a modernized version of the Tangerine Dream sound, to let everyone know this is 1980 and not 1975. To it doesn't quite reach the heights of their mid '70s glory, but I don't find it any worse than Stuntman, either (I find Stuntman enjoyable, and I'm not usually a fan of that '80s sound).