TDCP: Part 6 – The Second Order Received and fond memories

December 2, 2006

The final CD’s showed up in my latest batch order consisting of the following:

I tell you, their bringing back some fond memories.   It’s been years since I’ve been able to listen to them, and I am thoroughly enjoying them.

I did a TON of work re-structuring my discography list, and had to make some tough decisions about how I was going to approach this project moving forward (See Part 5 in this series) but I really dig how it has come together.

I also finished my first review.  See TDCP: Review – Electronic Meditation.  I’m not sure if I’m going to continue those reviews, as I’m not sure how many folks may be interested in it from my perspective. Who knows…The jury is still out, but perhaps more will show up from time to time, when I have the time :) .

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TDCP: Review – Electronic Meditation

November 21, 2006

This is the first in a series of personal reviews of Tangerine Dream related material.

Electronic Meditation

Release Year: 1970

TD Time Period: The Pink Years

Personal Background

When I first came acquired my copy of this LP back in oh…around 1985, my parents nor my family really knew what to think of me :) .  Sure, they gathered I was not the typical teenage boy who either listened primarily to Heavy Metal, Rock, Pop, etc, but they didn’t know what to make of the “noise” (as they called it) coming out of my room :) .

They would make comments such as “That’s just a bunch of nonsensical noise!”, but I knew better. 

I would say to myself “This means something, this is important!”  (Ok, so I stole that line from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but hey…it’s what I was thinking)

Let them say what they wanted….I was hooked :) .

Now it wasn’t your general cruise in the car kinda music (although I did do that…….down long dark roads…to enhance the experience :) ), but I found it to be quite enjoyable myself.  Call me weird…I don’t care.

I won’t go into the details on the background on this release, but leave it to you to check out the Electronic Meditation details at Voices in the Net for that.

This was one of the first times I’ve sat down to listen to this release in many, many years since it wasn’t until recently that I re-acquired it on CD after not having a turntable for long time.

The Review

This was one of the first times I’ve sat down to listen to this release in many, many years since it wasn’t until recently that I re-acquired it on CD after not having a turntable for long time.  Amazingly, I find that I still really enjoy this CD.

I don’t think I would recommend this though as an introductory to the whole Tangerine Dream phenomena, as I don’t believe it truly expresses what captivates so many Tadreamers out there, except for the pure experimental bliss of it.  If you’re going to be a fan, you definitely do have to experience this introductory CD to a band that has survived now for nearly 40 years and continues to make music, stretch and explore

Genesis

This track begins with an ominous series of chords with random pops, sinister faux ghostly howls, and guitar slides that lead to some real jazzy flute riffs and percussion towards the second half of the song.  Totally experimental, yet finalizing in a structured pattern of percussion and flute riffs as it heads to sudden and climatic change into the next track.

Journey Through a Burning Brain

Various guitar slides and plucks bring us along for a Journey Through a Burning Brain.  A low deep background hum brings us into a series of structured chords played via organ which provide the background and more experimental sounds on top.  Eventually the organ takes over to provide a majestic introduction to the next section of the song where once again, flute, percussion and more structure are introduced culminating into the main theme of the song.  Flute and guitar riffs are once again embellished on top of the hard pounding drums, and we rise to yet another climatic change and then back to the majestic organ chords as we fade out.

Cold Smoke

Drastically different than it’s predecessors, this time a softer gentler introduction, yet you are shocked by a quick but rapid burst of instruments, then soft and again, a shocking thunderbolt of instruments.  We then begin down an series of experimental sounds…altered guitar sounds, pops.  Finally we move into a structured rhythm and organ chords riffs, with constant experimental electronic sounds spread throughout.  One unknowing of the intent of the album may be concerned that they are having technical difficulties or shorts in the wiring system of their speaker, or interference, but just know…this is intentional :) .  We then begin to hear Edgar Froese move into some really cool guitar riffs panning from left to right reminiscent of the 60’s style of psychedelic rock and roll, suddenly ending with heavy breathing.

Ashes to Ashes

More of the experimental electronic sounds as in Cold Smoke lead us into Ashes to Ashes, but this time we immediately begin with a structured bass line, rhythm, enhanced by more guitar riffs.  Still a total experimental psychedelic jam session, but with primarily structure throughout except for the flute riffs.

Resurrection

This track ends with a majestic series of organ chords, with reversed dialog overlaying on the first half of the track.  I remember playing this backwards on my turntable to try to figure out what was being said :) .  Voices in the Net notes that the words are probably taken from a British custom’s visa document, and wikipedia notes that it is Edgar Froese reading from the back of a ferry ticket from Dover to Calais. It suddenly fades and we begin an almost clone of Genesis.  (It may in fact be the exact first 2 minutes from Genesis as far as I can tell)

In Conclusion

Some may not enjoy this release as much as I do, but as I noted before, Call me weird…..I don’t care.  Not only was this one of the first TD releases I heard, it was also my introduction into the realm of experimental music, and I honestly enjoy it.

Keith Richie

November 21, 2006

References:The Official Tangerine Dream Website

Voices in the Net

Electronic Meditation details at Voices in the Net

Electronic Meditation details at Wikipedia

The Tangerine Dream Collection Project at indieOpolis

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TDCP: Reviews – Prologue

November 21, 2006

The first time I can say “Officially” that I became aware of Tangerine Dream was with the soundtrack for Firestarter.  After that, I tried to accumulate as many TD related material as I could get my hands on.  Mind you, I was 14 at the time, therefore money was not something I had a great deal of :) , yet every time I would find something new, I would snatch it up.

The idea for doing a release by release review came when I started preparing to invest back into fulfilling a life long goal of acquiring the full official TD collection, and keeping up with it :)  

As for the personal reviews, there are many others who have done the same thing, but this is my review :) Not someone elses :) . 

It should be no surprise that Tangerine Dream was THE biggest influence on my own music.

I can’t promise that I’ll be able to finish the collection project nor the individual reviews, but I invite you to come along for the ride!

Keith Richie

November 21, 2006

References:The Official Tangerine Dream Website

Voices in the Net

Electronic Meditation details at Voices in the Net

The Tangerine Dream Collection Project at indieOpolis

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TDCP: Part 5 – Lotsa work later, and patiently awaiting another order

November 21, 2006

Quick note before I begin.  I’m changing the title of this series from the form of “The Tangerine Dream Collection Project: Part X…” to “TDCP: Part X…” to help a bit with title/subject consolidation.

Lotsa work later

Okie doke, so as noted in my previous post here, I just spent an enormous amount of time re-engineering and designing the new indieOpolis site and The Tangerine Dream Collection Project site in general.

Most of the time was spent designing the Tangerine Dream Release Inspector and the back-end items to support it.   It’s all setup and ready to go now.  I’m pretty excited about it :) .  I also added an RSS summary web part for this series as well as a summary web part to the tadream discussions Yahoo! group.

During all of this work, I realized that this project is probably going to take me much longer than I anticipated, and I’ve changed my direction on what my end goal is just a tad bit.

Initially, I decided that I was just going to get the main official primary studio releases filled.  But in retrospect, if I’m going to do this right :) I’ll make it a lifelong goal to collect “nearly everything” official :) .  Yep, that means finding those rare single vinyl releases, etc.  (No, I will not try to find every unique publishers release for every item, but I will try to find all the unique official releases).  Therefore, I have updated my categorization views on the full release list as follows:

  • In My Collection: This is a view of the list of items that are currently in my collection.
    • This view contains just that, the items in my collection :) But I’ve also recorded which types of media I have (I.e, CD or LP and which specific publisher release of each) and that data is stored in the IMC Details property of each item. For instance, here is the direct link to Electronic Meditation in my list where you can see an example of what I’m talking about.
    • I would recommend using the Tangerine Dream Release Inspector to view all the releases, as it’ provides a pretty snazzy navigation system for each release, details section, and cross reference link to which Time Period the release is from.  Check it out and let me know what you think!
    • It also contains a link Voices In The Net for more detailed information about each release
  • Items to acquire next: This list will contain the current list of items I’ll be acquiring first.  
    • What this means, at this time, is that this list is filtered down to only a Album release type (I.e no box or singles at this time), and only Studio in the release category (I.e., no Compilation nor Samplers live or soundtrack).
      • This doesn’t mean that I won’t necessarily order them in sequence (I.e, include a soundtrack or live release within an order), it’s just a way to make it a bit more manageable.  And the number of filter fields I would have to specify in a SharePoint list would be awful.  (Sure the heck wish we supported mutivalue or checks on our contains filter.)
    • When I’m finished with this release, I’ll update it to another selection, perhaps of Release Type: Album/Box and Release Category: Compilation/Set.
    • This seems to be the only way to make this manageable., and will allow me to get caught up on the studio releases which I have not pursued in quite a few years. 
  • Items to acquire (All): This is based on the semi-official release list from Voices In The Net.
    • Voices In The Net is is a non-profit information source for collectors of Tangerine Dream records. It contains an almost complete discography including all official releases of the group from 1970 up to now as far as they are known by the author.
    • This is a just a great resource.  Special thanks to Michael Berling for all his hard work!!!

Over the next week (Since I’m on vacation this week, And I have a long drive ahead of me :) ), I’ll be listening and providing review details for the “Personal Notes” section on each release.  I’ll also be going back through my collection to fill in the IMC Details for each release.

Patiently awaiting another order

I put in an order for the next batch of CD’s that I didn’t have which consists of the following:

That’s one shy of 10 like I previously mentioned, but I didn’t want my wife to kill me on spending a big chunk of change on “my little project” in one transaction.

The interesting thing about this order, is that I do already have these in my collection, but as Vinyl, but I keep them under lock and key :)   Now, I’m not going to get into a debate about vinyl quality over digital 16 bit 44 kHz PCM, so don’t even comment on it.  I want the CD versions of these for more than a couple of reasons:

  • My vinyl copies are my fine paintings :)
  • I can’t just rip them easily…well, I could go out and get a replacement turntable, which I will at some point, but that’s no in the plan for right now, and I want the CD’s to easily rip them to my media center.

Note: Back when I was young, and got sucked into TD, I bought a Cassette, Vinyl, and CD version of all the releases.  This was because you can find various bonus tracks etc depending on which publication of the release it is, so I just yanked up anything I could find :) .

Well, patiently awaiting, and standby for the next post where I start blogging about my personal reviews and memories of each release from the way back time machine :)

- Keith

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indieOpolis site restructuring and the Tangerine Dream collection project update

November 20, 2006

During the evenings over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been going like a bat out of hell re-constructing and developing the indieOpolis main site:

www.indieopolis.net

Check it out, and let me know if you have any comments.

As well, I spent the majority of this weekend re-working my “Tangerine Dream Collection Project” site.   I ”believe” I have all the broken links in my posts about this project updated, but if you find a few that are not, please let me know.  I’ll be posting next series in that post within the next few days.

Somehow during the middle of it all, I was able to finally finish getting my wife moved out of my home office :) .   This took about two months time (due to when I could actually SPEND time on it) as there were a few things I had to take care of first before I could move her out such as:

  • I promised wood flooring to go down in the room she was moving to.
  • The entire area was repainted, and we’re in the process of finishing up the room in general (molding, border, etc, etc)
  • I promised a decent desk for her before I moved her.
  • I debated hard wiring her connection or wireless.
  • It was costing me a small fortune :)

Unfortunately, her machine was the dedicated Media Center box for recording BSG, and all my shows :) And I don’t have a direct coax line running into that room.  Not sure if I’m “Going” to run a coax line, as I may decide to put Windows Vista Ultimate back on my primary workstation and use it’s MCE services going forward.  For right now, I’m in absolutely no mood to rebuild my primary workstation yet (even though it’s in dire need of it).  So perhaps after the holidays I’ll work on that.

Anyways, go check out the new indieOpolis site, as well as the updated Tangerine Dream Collection Project site.

 - Keith

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The Tangerine Dream Collection Project – Part 4 – The First Order Received

October 12, 2006

Atem showed up today thus fulfilling my complete order of the following:

This brings my collection to the following:

So, 22% done in CD acquisitions, and roughly already at 43% with what I already had plus the new additions.  (Of course, all based on the “Official” release list thus far)

What’s interesting, is I could have sworn I had Atem at one point in time, but find no record of it.  Oh well, now it’s here.

As noted in my previous post in this series, I may wind up ordering the next set of CD’s in a batch of 10.  In the mean time, I plan to get these first 5 back in my regular listening rotation and provide my own “Review” of each one as we progress along.

- Keith

Previous Posts in this series:

Additional references and links:

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The Tangerine Dream Collection Project – Part 3 – The First Order

September 29, 2006

I placed the first order today which consisted of the following as noted in my previous post in this series:

Between this order and my previous post, my good friend Joe Ross of EelMada found the following 3 CD’s at a local half price store:

  • Underwater Sunlight
  • Optical Race
  • Lily on the Beach

Since they were in good condition, I had him pick them up for me, not thinking and realizing I already had Optical Race in CD form LOL! (Oh well, it only cost me the price of a lunch and time to spend with a good friend, so no worries :) )

The total cost so far?

64.91 for the first order of 5 CDs.

20.00 for the CDs acquired via Joe. (I’m only stating 20 even though it was more…Like I said, it was an opportunity to sit with him, have lunch and a couple of beers :) )

In the end, a total of $84.91 which included shipping.

In reviewing my “To Aquire” list, I decided to go with full CD releases, rather than include the individual solo works or singles even though they are chronologically in the next set, so the next batch will probably include the following:

I’m really looking forward to order the next batch after that, as it will include some of my favorite releases which are:

 Here’s something interesting….If you search for “quichotte tangerine dream” in search.live.com, my discography list is the number 2 item in the list!! :) :)

I’ve also decided that once this project is done, I’ll work on building out my copy of the Tangerine Tree.  I feel it’s best to first send my money where it is due for the official releases, before beginning to collect the entire set of trees and leaves (See the Tangerine Tree project for more details)

- Keith

Previous Posts in this series:

Additional references and links:

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The Tangerine Dream Collection Project – Part 2 – The cost estimate and the wifes’ reaction!

September 29, 2006

The Wifes’ Reaction

So I told my wife about my little project, and to my complete utter amazement, she stated “Ok”

After I got back up off the floor from falling out of my chair (I don’t think she realizes just how much this is going to cost yet :) ), I started thinking of how I wanted to attack backfilling my collection.

  • Should I start with replacing the destroyed media first?
  • Or should I just start chronologically from the beginning?

I think I’ll go with the chronological pattern first (as much as possible :) .  What stinks about this, is that I’ll be replacing all the earlier releases which I either had at one time, and were damaged, etc.   So it will be tough until I start getting to a lot of the newer releases I haven’t even heard yet.

The Cost Estimate

Based on my current Items to Acquire list, which is currently sitting at 136 items, with an average of $10 per CD…simple math tells us that this will run me $1,360 at a minimum.

Obviously I want to order as many as possible if I order them online, to save costs with shipping and handling.

Some of you may be asking

“Why don’t you just purchase as many as you can from the Digital Distributors like MSN Music, iTunes, etc?”

Well, I could do that…but I want the to be able to rip using the highest quality for my media server.

    “Why don’t you use someone like MusicGiants who provides Hi-Fi music downloads using Windows Media Audio Lossless encoding?”

Well, for me…Each CD is like a fine painting :) . Some people collect paintings…I collect CDs of my favorite artists:)

Truthfully, there are only a few artists in which I would just insist on having hard copies of CDs.  TD is one of them.   I want to ensure I have the hard copies as backups in case I have to re-rip again.   That’s just that :)   Until we’re able to download (legally that is) uncompressed 24bit audio :) I’ll stick with the CDs, as a lot of new music (Especially from TD) is coming out in 24bit formats.

The plan

I think the best way to tackle this, would be for me to order at least 5 CD’s per month on each months self allowance for this project.

That would allow me to complete this task in just over 2 years (around 27 moinths :) )

But, if I find good copies of CDs in used shops, etc…Obviously I’m going to go that route, for cost savings and time savings.

I’ll probably use Amazon as much as possible as they have the widest stock of TD material at this time.  Once I get into the “Current years” releases, I can go to the official TD site and order from there if necessary, for specialty items.

Also, after each purchase is established, I’ll update my Items currently in my collection list and the others with the source location so in the end, we’ll have a complete list to refer back to just in case.

With that in mind, here are the first 5 CDs that I’ll be purchasing.

Stay tuned for Part 3 “The first order“

- Keith

Previous Posts in this series:

Additional references and links:

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The Tangerine Dream Collection Project – Part 1

September 29, 2006

As I was preparing for my first post of “The History of Musical Influences“, I did something that caused a stirring in me that’s been going awhile, and thus it turned into a tornadic experience :) and I’ve started up a new project called “The Tangerine Dream Collection Project“

I spent the better part of the morning of Saturday May 20th 2006, re-ripping and cataloging everything I had TD related.  To my surprise…I no longer had as many items as I once had.  I’ve either lost them, loaned them to someone and forgot, and a lot of my material was destroyed in moves, etc.

It’s been a few years since I stopped buying everything TD related due to necessary budget constraints.  But now, I’m ready to dig back and complete this lifelong goal :) , thus a new personal project to acquire missing CD’s, replace destroyed ones, and purchase all outstanding TD related works that are yet in my collection.

So I went to http://www.tangerinedream.org/ and got the official Discography list and compared my collection to that list.  Even the official list at http://www.tangerinedream.org/ isn’t 100% concise due to a lot of imports, etc, but it’s what I’m going off of right now.

Obviously, I’ll be using SharePoint lists to keep track of everything :) .

I’ve set up a site simply called “The Tangerine Dream Collection Project” here:

http://www.indieopolis.net/sites/krichie/tdcp

There you’ll find the following lists:

I thought it would be an interesting project to blog about.

Stay tuned for Part 2 “The cost estimate and the wife’s’ reaction!” :)

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Posted by Keith Richie