RICOCHET

The first and perhaps best live album from Tangerine Dream. Recorded during the trio's European tour of 1975, the sound is very good. However, the good sound may be a giveaway that there were some studio overdubs added later. Most live albums in the 1970s had stuff added in the studio later; the ones that seemingly did not are the same ones that get criticized for having bad sound. For the first time since Atem TD uses drums here. Most likely played by Franke, these in fact might be a studio addition. I'm not an expert on live TD, but I don't think they toured with a drumkit at this point in their career. Another thing is that sometimes you can hear two Mellotrons at the same time; as far as I know they only used one live, usually played by Froese.

Regardless of overdubs or not, this is still a great album full of great music. When TD played a concert (sometimes in places like cathedrals), they would just improvise. So their live albums generally feature all new music. The music here is similar to both Rubycon and Stratosfear. Being a live recording the sequencers are all in C minor, because supposedly the synths they were using could only be programmed with that chord in real time. Froese makes good use of his guitar playing on the album. Peter Baumann seems to be the only one stuck with just keyboards.

After some synths and a sequencer pattern is set up at the beginning of Part One, Froese begins to play some guitar. Not long after Franke starts playing drums. His drumming here is somwhat similar to the kind of drumming you hear on some of Klaus Schulze's '70s albums. Froese switches between guitar and keyboards. At 6 1/2 minutes is tape effects of voices. Halfway the sequencers start becoming more important. Later the music gets more intense with the sequencers, drums and guitar playing together. The sequencer after 13 minutes is interesting but brief. Last few minutes are just synth drones.

Some CD versions have the first few seconds of background noise that starts Part Two edited out. The actual music starts with some lovely piano playing; one of TD's best musical moments. Some mellotron joins the piano. The piano dies out and it sounds like two Mellotrons duetting before they stop and a sequencer pattern begins. Other keys appear and a little bit of drum machine here and there. The sequencers get very piano- sounding while the soloing synths are more spacey and ethereal. Later some guitar.

Over halfway the first sequencer pattern gets reprised. The drum machine patterns at this point are quite hypnotic. Around 13 minutes starts some metallic sounding sequencers before some looped voices go back and forth; one of the best parts of the album. Some eerie yet beautiful Mellotron plays overtop then plays by itself. The first sequencer pattern gets reprised yet again. Later on some interesting sequencer patterns and synth playing. Ends with some modified Mellotron choir sounds then applause.

This could be a good introduction to TD but Phaedra and Rubycon will sound a little different if you hear this first. In concert, at least in the '70s and early '80s, the music these guys came up with was just as good as almost anything on their studio albums. For something recorded in 1975, this still holds up well after all these years. Certainly less dated sounding than a lot of what TD did in the '80s and '90s. I'll give this 4 stars.