About 52 seconds into the album, what would later go down in history as the most influential sound in electronic music was introduced. The sequence-driven notes from the modular Moog were at that time a craft that had to be recreated every time the instrument was woken up after it had been turned off once. If Phaedra (1974) had been recorded today, 50 years later, that process would of course have looked completely different.
Phaedra is Tangerine Dream's fifth album, the third with the same line-up of musicians and the first on the Virgin record label. In hindsight, the title track and also the opening track seems a bit tentative, perhaps even improvisational. This is not really a negative experience, but it is a bit of a contrast to the compositions on the three subsequent albums, which to my ears represent the same expressive format, soundscape but with a much clearer direction.
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| The album cover, including the painting, was created by the polymath Edgar Froese |
Since Tangerine Dream's discography spans over 300 releases, it might be a tricky undertaking to describe the common thread through their productions. If you want to use more detailed terms than "electronic", and even though I can't boast of having heard all of their releases, I almost dare to say that Tangerine Dream has never returned to the type of krautrock that was presented, not least on their debut album Electronic Meditation and to some extent on their follow-up Alpha Centauri.
If the title track can be perceived as improvised, then the same can rightly be said about the subsequent Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares, where Edgar Froese's handling of the mellotron forms the basis for the sweeping mists over the English moors. Well, Phaedra was actually recorded at The Manor Studio outside Oxford. Something that apparently appealed to the trio so much that their following album Rubycon would be attributed the same fate.
With Movements of a Visionary, Christopher Franke lays the foundation for what I hear in my inner ear every time Tangerine Dream is mentioned. Here, it is the sequences in the analog Moog that drive the soundscape forward. So much so that the closing track, Sequent C, with Peter Baumann's recorder, feels like an ultimate safe return to the listener's home planet.
The album spans just under 40 minutes and if you choose to listen to it on vinyl (which is highly recommended!) it is divided so that the title track takes up the entire first side while the three other pieces all share the second side. On the other hand, I equally strongly recommend listening to the album on the collection The Virgin Years 1974 -1978, which is available on CD and on any streaming service. Extremely valuable if you want to take part in this chapter in a slightly larger context.
Genre: Electronic, cosmic, ambient, progressive