Search - Tangerine Dream :: Flashpoint

Essential TD. Quintessential TD.

Jeremy Boe | Bedford, NY USA | 12/31/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I stumbled onto the review section here for the first time while ordering my fourth copy of this CD (my wife and I destroy any CD that we actually play). I heard this soundtrack in a Nebraska record store in 1984 when the newly-formed HBO Pictures was trying to promo a tremendously unsuccessful movie debut. The impulse-purchase cassette introduced me to both the film and to TD. The film, an ambient mystery/suspense flick starring Treat Williams and Kris Kristofferson, is a must-see for TD fans and for conspiracy buffs, and its desert scenery formed a marvelous backdrop for the TD tunes. I won't bother telling anyone reading a TD review on this website about TD's music in general.This soundtrack is similar to a number of TD pieces I like from the mid-70s to the mid-80s: Hyperborea, Exit, Risky Business Soundtrack, Thief Soundtrack, et al. It postdates a lot of the drifting psychedelia that some hardcore TD fans may consider the real deal, but that's a little inaccessible for people like me who just stumbled into the genre. It definitely predates the band's slide into elevator music later in the same decade. (There are probably those who differ with that assessment too, and for those people I've got copies of Canyon Dreams, Private Music of TD, etc. which are theirs for the shipping.) The tracks are short by TD album standards - 3-4 minutes - and package TD ambience into pop-sized structures. I strongly recommend the soundtrack for anyone who enjoyed the albums listed above."