tangerine dream recommendations?

[dropforge]

In terms of TD-scored films that I've enjoyed, Thief, Sorcerer, Near Dark and Miracle Mile all hit the right notes for me. I love the score for Legend but the movie itself hasn't aged as well (other than Tim Curry's immortally FABULOUS beastie).

Of the "b-grade" scores in the 80's, The Park is Mine is probably my #1 though. Like a hybrid of Poland with Thief. Never seen the film though!

Yeah, Park is outlandishly good. For pure compositional bliss, I toggle betwixt Firestarter and Heartbreakers (which also has a few things in common with Poland).

[battema]

Yeah, Park is outlandishly good. For pure compositional bliss, I toggle betwixt Firestarter and Heartbreakers (which also has a few things in common with Poland).

For whatever damned reason Heartbreakers never clicked with me. I need to keep trying clearly...until it's as timeless as the Emulator

Firestarter's great, better than the movie certainly! I do love several of those tracks.

[dropforge]

For whatever damned reason Heartbreakers never clicked with me. I need to keep trying clearly...until it's as timeless as the Emulator

Firestarter's great, better than the movie certainly! I do love several of those tracks.

I like Firestarter but I freely admit there's a bit of sentiment attached. It's one of those movies I watched at the drive-in when drive-ins were a thing. The music is definitely better than the movie.

[battema]

I hear ya! Got a few that I realize are way better through my nostalgic goggles than without 'em

[Mr.Krautman]

Yeah, Park is outlandishly good. For pure compositional bliss, I toggle betwixt Firestarter and Heartbreakers (which also has a few things in common with Poland).

And what's about "Legend", one of the very few T.D OST's I never bough back then and never listened to.
Recommendable ?

[battema]

And what's about "Legend", one of the very few T.D OST's I never bough back then and never listened to.
Recommendable ?

IMHO it greatly depends on how you feel about the sound of those early digital samplers. Legend is mostly digital textures, lots of the Emulator II. I think it's terrific and very, very different from everything else they did (the closest reference for me personally is Schmoelling's Wuivend Riet). But it's not going to appeal to everyone here for various reasons.

It also has 1.5 additional tracks that aren't TD: a pretty good Bryan Ferry tune with a pretty great 80's guitar solo from David Gilmour, and "Loved by the Sun" which is a TD tune that Jon Anderson went and added to, sans involvement from TD.

[dropforge]

Of the "b-grade" scores in the 80's, The Park is Mine is probably my #1 though. Like a hybrid of Poland with Thief. Never seen the film though!

[3LockBox]

My first recollection of Tangerine Dream was the soundtrack to Risky Business. I knew a few guys that owned some older Tangerine Dream and I was completely underwhelmed. An open mind and patience is very necessary exploring this band.

There are two decent compilations that cover all I care to listen to:

The Virgin Years (74-78) from 2011

Dream Sequence from 1985

[Tangram]

Whole lotta subjectivity incoming!!

IMHO despite their prevalence in the 80's, very little of Tangerine Dream's output is really new age in the "typical" new age sense. The classic 70's albums noted above are great but also mostly minor key with a fair bit of ominous atmosphere. Zeit gets close in terms of early ambient/drone music (I used to use Zeit to help me fall asleep at night in college). At the peak of new age in the 80's/90's, TD was mostly moving between instrumental electronic rock/pop and adding some very tentative bits of house/trip-hop to their rhythms.

If you're just looking for an entry point for TD, the Virgin stuff noted already is perfectly grand. For me, the closest they got to "proper" new age was The Seven Letters from Tibet which came out in 2000 (and isn't exactly my favorite album by any stretch). For more typically new age type stuff, you might look just outside the band at some of the side projects that came along the way: ...

Another album of theirs that I consider New Age (along with the mentioned The Seven Letters from Tibet), is the compilation disk Soft Dream Decade. Funny, on most of the original disks I would skip these tracks but together they work for me.

[llanwydd]

Thanks, everybody, for the recommendations. I decided to go with the early stuff and have started with Phaedra which I quite enjoyed. I think next up is Zeit.

[Piskie]

Klaus Schulze is worth checking out when you have been down the Tangerine Dream rabbit hole.

[Dana5140]

I think next up is Zeit.

Zeit is very different from Phaedra! Still very good, but this is early TD before sequencers really drove their music during their classic phase.

[Trane]

Whole lotta subjectivity incoming!!

IMHO despite their prevalence in the 80's, very little of Tangerine Dream's output is really new age in the "typical" new age sense. The classic 70's albums noted above are great but also mostly minor key with a fair bit of ominous atmosphere. Zeit gets close in terms of early ambient/drone music (I used to use Zeit to help me fall asleep at night in college). At the peak of new age in the 80's/90's, TD was mostly moving between instrumental electronic rock/pop and adding some very tentative bits of house/trip-hop to their rhythms.

Wow, Zeit is one of those albums I once listened to in my bedroom with headphones on around midnight in the dark and lying in bed, and I remember it scaring the shit out of me and had trouble finding sleep for much of the night.
I had borrowed it from the library (amazing that a public library would carry some Tangerine Dream back in 73, too), because the eclipse artwork astounded me - much like the DSOTM concept did too, though that Floyd surely enough didn't scare me. Actually Floyd's Echoes had more or less the same effect than Zeit did (maybe not nightmares, but insomnia) with these spooky seagulls and sonar sounds. I guess I wasn't ready yet for such stuff at tender age of 10 or 11, but it probably shaped my music orientations permanently.
I returned to Zeit & Meddle a couple of years later and loved both

Thanks, everybody, for the recommendations. I decided to go with the early stuff and have started with Phaedra which I quite enjoyed. I think next up is Zeit.

I'd probably explore more of those Virgin albums like Ricochet or Force Majeure, before moving to the earlier stuff like Zeit. But the aural difference between Phaedra and Zeit is probably closer than Phaedra would be with Force Majeure.

Klaus Schulze is worth checking out when you have been down the Tangerine Dream rabbit hole.

Absolutely, and AFAIAC, you can't go wrong with almost anything before 1980 and that's roughly the same timespan than for TD.
Those albums with the Dali-esque artworks are the ones to approach first and Timewind is my fave.

[Tangram]

Thanks, everybody, for the recommendations. I decided to go with the early stuff and have started with Phaedra which I quite enjoyed. I think next up is Zeit.

Bold choice by jumping straight into the deep end with Zeit. Even here you will get the love it or hate it argument. If you're getting the CD, be sure to get the remaster with the 2nd disk that also contains the Klangwald concert.

I'm in the love it crowd but it's definitely a mood album that doesn't get played much. I remember reading a review of Zeit that simply said it was like listening to the fans in his refrigerator. I don't agree but it always makes me laugh.

[battema]

Bold choice by jumping straight into the deep end with Zeit. Even here you will get the love it or hate it argument. If you're getting the CD, be sure to get the remaster with the 2nd disk that also contains the Klangwald concert.

I'm in the love it crowd but it's definitely a mood album that doesn't get played much. I remember reading a review of Zeit that simply said it was like listening to the fans in his refrigerator. I don't agree but it always makes me laugh.

Made me laugh too I can't hear that either (also in the love it crowd), but it really depends on someone's comfort level with more drone/ambient oriented music. Basically very early space music.

[battema]

(remembering Red Heat and Linda Blair)

Man, the 80's were a hell of a thing

[Mr.Krautman]

Bold choice by jumping straight into the deep end with Zeit. Even here you will get the love it or hate it argument. If you're getting the CD, be sure to get the remaster with the 2nd disk that also contains the Klangwald concert.

I'm in the love it crowd but it's definitely a mood album that doesn't get played much. I remember reading a review of Zeit that simply said it was like listening to the fans in his refrigerator. I don't agree but it always makes me laugh.

I mostly agree but the real challenge would have been to start with Electronic Meditation.

From Phaedra I wouldn't have gone backward but forward to Rubycon wich I consider the best mid-period (Virgin Years) TD record.

[battema]

I mostly agree but the real challenge would have been to start with Electronic Meditation.

From Phaedra I wouldn't have gone backward but forward to Rubycon wich I consider the best mid-period (Virgin Years) TD record.

I personally prefer Rubycon to Phaedra as well, but either one would do the trick for a newbie.

I remember the first time I heard Electronic Meditation, I was not prepared for what came out of those speakers It's still not an album I want to revisit often but I do appreciate that raw intensity from time to time.

[Trane]

I mostly agree but the real challenge would have been to start with Electronic Meditation.

I remember the first time I heard Electronic Meditation, I was not prepared for what came out of those speakers It's still not an album I want to revisit often but I do appreciate that raw intensity from time to time.

TBH, I find both EM and AC quite accessible, but not at all what to expect from the classic TD. We're definitely more in the psych/space rock realm.

[dropforge]

(remembering Red Heat and Linda Blair)

Man, the 80's were a hell of a thing

If the trailer for that movie doesn't elicit a stir, check your big toe for a tell-tale tag.

[dropforge]

I personally prefer Rubycon to Phaedra as well

X3