Search - Tangerine Dream :: Summer in Nagasaki

Summer of Disappointment

Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 05/03/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

""Summer in Nagasaki" is the second chapter of Tangerine Dream's on-going five-CD project entitled "The Five Atomic Seasons". The project is the result of a commission from a Japanese business manager, identified only as "Mr HT", who was a student in Nagasaki during the spring and summer of 1945, right up until the A-bomb attack on Hiroshima on 6th August of that year. By sheer chance, HT was visiting his parents in Kyoto, when the second A-bomb attack destroyed Nagasaki three days later. Amongst the estimated 40,000 souls annihilated in the atomic detonation over the city of Nagasaki on that day was HT's fellow student and fiancee, Ayumi.



While "Springtime in Nagasaki" set the scene for the series as a whole by portraying the everyday bustle of the city, "Summer in Nagasaki" turns to the more personal events in HT's life at that time. Although divided into seven tracks, the music plays as a more or less continuous piece, chronicling HT's romantic and carefree trips into the hills and countryside outside the city with Ayumi in the weeks before the attacks, followed by the fears and confusion of everyone in the wake of news of the attack on Hiroshima, HT's train-ride to Kyoto to check up on his parents and ending with the attack on Nagasaki itself at 11:02am on 9th August in which HT's world was turned upside down.



After the wonderful promise offered by "Springtime in Nagasaki", I have to say that "Summer..." comes as much of a disappointment. While the earlier disc offered some new departures musically, was well-executed and engaging throughout, this second part of the series feels to settle down into nothing more than a run-of-the-mill soundtrack offering, reminiscent of much of the film-score music that Edgar Froese has churned out over the years. There is no doubt that much of the material here is well-crafted -- just as it was for, say, "Transsiberia" or "Great Wall of China" -- but overall I found it far less engaging than the previous offering. Credited entirely to Edgar Froese, Thorsten Quaeschning's input is sorely missing here.



The early sections of the disc ('Climbing Mount Inasa' and 'In the Cherry Blossom Hills') are pleasant enough but for me they neither evoke anything particularly Japanese, nor convey the carefree but passionate times they are supposed to portray. The central section, especially the lengthy 'Mystery of Life and Death' is better, with its intense brooding atmosphere representing the immediate responses to the news of the destruction of Hiroshima. There is a definite unease to this section of the disc, with its inability to settle into any particular tempo which does the work far more favours than the bland pleasantness of the opening. There is further descent into mediocrity with 'Dreaming in a Kyoto Train' and 'Ayumi's Butterflies' which is only partly salvaged by 'Presentiment'. The closing '11:02am' is a mixed bag of ideas, also. There is probably no way any piece of music can come close to expressing the horrors and enormity of the loss suffered by even a single individual on that August morning. But this doesn't even come close, I'm afraid. It starts well, with a slow building of tension over some seven minutes or so, gradually thinning to an ethereal shell of ghostly voices before undergoing a complete shift into some other musical realm entirely, one devoid of both pitch and tempo. Probably if the disc had finished there, it would have been fine but I'm afraid for me the organ chords which emerge from this passage and which draw the disc to a crass and ponderous close completely spoil the effect, with the end coming over as both clichéd and musically unsatisfying. The disc feels to end on a cliff-hanger rather resolving until the dark and uncertain future which I can't help feeling was intended.



Overall, "Summer in Nagasaki" is a grave disappointment which certainly does not live up to the promise of its predecessor. TD purists will need to acquire it of course, but I'd urge others to sample liberally before they commit, especially given the overall unevenness of the quality here.



The discs making up "The Five Atomic Seasons" are being made available as limited edition releases by Eastgate (Edgar Froese's publishing company) directly from their online music store but are otherwise in short supply. "Springtime in Nagasaki" was released in March 2007, with "Summer in Nagasaki" following in July. "Autumn in Hiroshima" was released in October 2008; the fourth part, "Winter in Hiroshima", released in August 2009. There is no word at this time on the likely availability date for the concluding part."

Edgar's masterpiece

Mr. A. J. King | uk | 06/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Tangerine Dream-Summer in Nagasaki



Ok cards on the table, when I heard that 'only' Edgar was involved in this recording I immediately had certain preconceptions about what the music would be like (good and bad), to be honest I'm not always excited by Edgar's solo stuff. So what do I think now? 'for me' this has to be Edgar's finest recording, honestly I was left stunned by the controlled power of the music and the subject matter. OK, there were a few moments where I thought 'ah, more of the same from Edgar'...but everytime he saved the day. Yes there are some old sounds on this CD, but it all has some new timbres and ideas, Edgar is limiting himself deliberately on SUIN, but here is a mature composer bringing everything to the table, it's such a confident work. Like a few fans I first skipped to the end of the recording to see how Edgar would deal with the nuclear bomb being dropped on the city (and very impressed I was to...you'll have to hear it for yourself). However when you listen to it as a whole album, leading up to that moment, then the effect is a crushing experience, a self realisation that whilst you're enjoying pure music, rushing along... that the music was like running to the centre of the city and then looking up and once again you're at the end of the track, that sound....and you're one of the population looking up at 11.02am, and the sky has just blinked into the last thing you will ever see, a man-made sun bringing everything you know, every thought, every emotion to a close...finished...over.



I can't say any more...it's music, it's art...buy it."