Search - Tangerine Dream :: Book of Dreams

A good starter album

Ali-John Chaudhary | Québec Canada | 06/05/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Wow. I can't believe that I'm the first TD fan to actually review this great album. Why is this album so great? Well, for one, you have the two most powerful periods of TD music compilated on two CDs. True, that it lacks most of the content from "The Virgin Years" (1974-1983) which are CDs in and of themselves well worth picking up, but the material here is so.. complete as to in fact give you a taste of the essence of Tangerine Dream. Which is what a compilation should do hence the five star vote. Wahn, with it's tribal beats, Songs of the whale, with it's babe-like innocence, the comtemplation of the Green deserts, the intensity of Alchemy of the heart, You will learn to love and cherish all of these songs, and more, as I have. Again, I cannot stress the importance of having this album in your collection. Enjoy."

Here we go again!!

Daniel A Kaufman | Mercer Island, WA United States | 09/15/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I believe very strongly that tangerine dream fans NEED to continue to be VERY careful before buying "new" releases of TD. It concerns me that sometime very soon, we are going to be buying compilations OF compilations put out by TD. If Edgar has run out of ideas for new music, maybe it's time for him to think "retirement" or maybe it's just become time to pass the TD torch over to Jerome.. We just aren't getting any new stuff. On the other hand, if you're new to TD, then by all means get this album...It has a lot of good music on it but for this TD fan who's been listening for more than twenty years, this just smells of greed by Edger who has seemingly and unfortunately run out of new ideas and is trying to make as much money as possible before he finally DOES retire...Sorry, Not trying to be overly negative here but it sure is getting tedious to have to buy an entire album just to get one or two NEW songs."

Another TD repackaging exercise

Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 12/02/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This 2-CD compilation set, dating from 2000, is actually drawn from the larger 5-disc compilation set of 1996, "The Dream Roots Collection". Quite why anyone would want this in preference to the larger set (except to save some money, of course) rather defeats me.All of the works showcased here, mostly in bleeding-chunk form, come from two periods of Tangerine Dreams' recording history. The so-called Pink Years (1970-73) prior to the band's signing with Virgin Records and the Blue Years - the time during which they were signed to New Age label, Jive-Electro (1983-87). The band's five earliest albums are covered here by a total of just seven tracks, taking up about half the first CD of the set. These tracks are not simply extracts from the original discs, however, but are mostly "recomposed" versions based only loosely on the originals. Some snippets of the original material are detectable underneath the drifts of thick new synthesiser textures that have been laid over them but sometimes only just. 'Green Desert' is the only work to benefit from this treatment, in my opinion, although fans of the original will no doubt disagree with me.In fact, I suspect that most fans of TD's early music will absolutely hate what has been done on these first seven tracks. Certainly, much of the new material seems to have been added with little sensitivity to the original and gives the impression that it has been produced in order to appeal to those who only know Tangerine Dream's later music. I suppose that one almost acceptable way to approach these treatments is to view them as new retrospective mixes, merely based upon ideas from the older works. Even then, though, the whole exercise feels to make about as much sense (and is as sacrilegious) as taking coloured felt-tip pens to beautiful old pencil sketches: it may "update" the medium, but the original message is mostly lost in the process! I do hope Edgar Froese managed to achieve some sort of karmic closure from this revisiting of his roots and that he can now get on with new things!The remaining disc and a half are given over to a period that is regarded by many as marking the very peak of Tangerine Dream's creativity. The albums included in this period are the studio albums "Tyger", "Underwater Sunlight" and "Le Parc", plus the live sets "Poland" and "Livemiles". All five of these are represented to some degree. The booklet notes suggest that the tracks included here are also studio reworkings of the originals but most sound (to me at least) like live concert versions of the originals. Sometimes, they are more or less identical to their earlier releases but mostly, either the instrumentation is subtly different, or the tempo altered a little, or else some other slight re-arrangement features. All of this music remains faithful to the original, though, and I don't believe anyone who knows any of the previous releases will be at all dissatisfied with the treatment they receive here. They are all identical to the selections presented in the Dream Roots collection, which manages to include roughly twice as much material from these albums as appears here. Interestingly, track ordering here matches the chronological sequence of the original releases, so that the discs do provide something of an encapsulated journey through the band's musical history - or would if the early material hadn't been so drastically altered. In summary then, this collection will present a good buy to anyone who is just looking for a sampling of the works of Tangerine Dream but doesn't want to fork out for the full 5-disc collection of which this is merely part. Established fans should avoid this release altogether, as it has nothing new to offer them whatsoever. Any such interested in hearing the new treatments should go instead for "The Dream Roots Collection" and so at least gain some new material as well."