TANGRAM

After the wonderful "Force Majeure" album, new member Johanness Schmoelling has been added and his strong modern influence will remain until 1985. He completely redefined the Tangerine Dream sound, especially the rythmic section, now marked by powerful streams of sustained keyboards. Tangram is a major Tangerine Dream album: Until Le Parc, albums will follow the modern and sequenced sounds paced by Tangram. First of all, Tangram is EXTREMELY electronic, very artificial, as revealed by an ultimate helium-boosted sound. Froese's electric guitar amazingly merges with the keyboards: indeed the guitar almost sounds like a synthesizer. The involved styles are electronic rock and New Age. The melodic beat sequencers enhance the already highly dynamic ambience of the floating and melodic keyboards. Characterized by many floating & powerful keyboards arrangements, the overall sound is often scary, not because the effects are extremely dark, but rather because the nervous over-saturated sound is hard to take, especially when you listen it loud. The latter bit of side 2 sounds like the Who's "Won't get fooled again"! If you like this record, then their record Pergamon partly contains an outstanding live performance of Tangram.