Search - Tangerine Dream :: Atem

Here is Where They REALLY Started

Ryle Shermatz | Cedar Rapids, IA | 07/08/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The Tangs really found direction on this, their third release from way back in 1973. This was the first release featuring the Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann line-up that quickly established them as out-there pioneers of experimental space-rock. Listeners familiar with their early Virgin label releases "Phaedra" and "Rubycon" will find "Atem" to be a worthy companion to both those widely-acknowledged classics and an interesting taste of a new genre just taking its first baby steps after some nasty pratfalls on their earlier releases ("Electronic Meditation"-unlistenable, and "Zeit", not much better).



"Atem" ("breathless" in German) was the first band effort to really codify the cosmic atmospherics that the Tangs quickly perfected on their other 1970's classic releases, most particularly the previously cited "Rubycon" and "Phaedra". Let's be clear about this: you will never sing along to "Atem" as you drive to work; you will never put it in the CD changer for you and your friends to nibble cheese and slurp Zinfandel to. This is stark Teutonic synthesizer moodiness at its most austere and ponderous level. This is not music you warm to; it's unique in the chilly soundscapes their then-exotic analog synthesizers created. Unlike their synth predecessors like Dick Hyman, Wendy Carlos, Tomita, or Keith Emerson, the Tangs were indifferent to the synthesizers' ability to reinterpret previous musical tropes in a zippy, novel 1960's sort of way. Froese, Franke & Baumann chose instead to take a sharp left turn and instead create a whole new stylistic vocabulary of electronic composition which they owned more or less exclusively for a short while. Contemporaries like Klaus Schulze (a member of the Tangs on their first release) also drew from the same well his old band initially drilled, and quite effectively too (I recommend Schulze's 1977 release "Mirage" very highly), but the Tangs definitely should be your first stop in experiencing this unique stew of Wagnerian drama and ethereal soundscapes.



If you're new to this genre and interested I would recommend you start with "Rubycon," Tangerine Dream's fifth release, issued to great acclaim in 1975, and to my ears still their pinnacle of composition and performance. If this impresses you, then go back & pick up "Phaedra", then "Atem". Or possibly skip "Atem" altogether in favor of their first live album, the hypnotic "Ricochet," a fascinating taste of the mid-70's "scene," where edgy artists like the Tangs could pull off shows premiering all previously unrecorded material to reverential audiences on the continent basking in awe (or possibly just stoned deference) to the mysterious prog-rock kaliedoscope being sonically unfurled.



Germany was really the birthplace of this electronic rock genre and during the '70's had an outrageously vibrant progressive rock scene, boasting not only the Tangs but other luminaries such as Ash Ra Temple, Eloy, Nine Days Wonder, Kraan, Kraftwerk, Trimvirat, Cluster, Tritonus and many others who burned not quite so incandescently during this brief fruiting of adventurous rockers who have left us such a rich vein of pioneering music to rediscover and appreciate.



"Atem", while not a top-drawer example of what the German scene could produce at that time still stands up as an early obelisk on the road toward the ruins of the shining progressive city erected in the 1970's and since mostly abandoned. RECOMMENDED for those undaunted by sounds that challenge you to rise to their level and not vice-versa.





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Music from a Primordial Temple...

Patric A. Stuber | Memphis TN | 06/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A fantastic bit of music. The type of music I would expect to float from an otherworldly temple rendered in an old 70's issue of Heavy Metal (illustrated fantasy) magazine. Long Live Den!!! I purchased Exit as well, but MUCH perfer Atem. Very much worth the dime.

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