RICOCHET

A TANGERINE DREAM live recording is not a conventional live recording in every sense. Firstly, it contains little immediate "presence" like a typical in concert disk. Secondly, the audience is on a "trip" and doesn't punctuate the performance with applause. Thirdly, the material is all original, not having appeared or yet to appear on studio albums. And fourthly, but not necessarily finally, improvisation appears to be the name of the game, as the artists feed off each other for ongoing inspiration and the music develops and envelopes. This was less the case when I finally saw them in a live setting in 1988, but the occasion was nonetheless transformational.

A lovely, sparse and eerie cover, 2 long tracks with bubbling percussion of multicultural origins, morose lead guitar phrasings, reflective piano solos, sound effects, Arabic phrasings, gently recurrent themes and ample hints of the direction the group would take on subsequent studio albums all make this an intriguing listen. Yet I fear that, without having experienced the album in the concert hall, or in the context of its time or at least in the proper chronological order, I cannot regard it as highly as most of what followed. As progenitor of their new found and perversely accessible style, it's of tremendous historic value, but I am more likely to bounce off "Stratosfear" or "Force Majeure" when on a haphazard collision course with mid to late 1970s Tangerine Dream.