FORCE MAJEURE

Although I´m neither an eletronic music expert nor a fan of Tangerine Dream I decided to write a review about this CD because I really liked its music. Previously my sole experince with TD´s music was hearing my sister´s copy of Phaedra in the mid 70´s. That experimental, strutctureless sound didn´t appeal to me at all: it wasmore like incidental background music for a terror movie, not the progressive sounds I was starting to love at the time. Small wonder Tangerine Dream did so many soundtracks in the following years!

So I was not exactly thrilled when a friend gave me this CD. But upon hearing it I was quite surprised how the TD sound had changed: in Force Majeure there are a number of ´common´ instruments and quite captivating tunes. I never thought I´d hear strumming acoustic guitars along with some Gilmour-like eletric solos on a TD album! Drums are also present (eletronic drums, but played by a real drummer anyway). Of the only 3 tracks the long title track and Cloudburst Flight are the best ones, both quite melodiic and enjoyable, mixing very well the experimental and the conventional side of the eletronic music, with fine, captivating melodies. Thru Metamorphic Rocks stars off very well but soon gets too repetitive and pointless. Legend says it occured by a mistake of the mixing board during the recording. If so, why didn´t they fixed it?

Nevertheless, I found this CD to be both interesting and pleasant even if you´re not really into this kind of genre. I guess now I´ll try to hear more of Tangerine Dream´s catholog in the near future. I recommend Force Majeure especially to the non initiated. 3 stars.