By the age of ten, I had a healthy music
appreciation education thanks to my extremely talented father and cousin. My
dad contributed his ridiculously extensive knowledge of 50s and 60s doo-wop,
Motown, R&B, rock & roll, and pop standards and often quizzed me on the
artists and years of these amazing recordings. I tortured my little sister in
much the same way. However, in the spirit of classical conditioning I would
dole out noogies for every wrong answer she gave. Today she is quite the music aficionado
thanks to her twisted older brother. My cousin, Robb, an incredible bassist and
songwriter, and 6 years my senior, contributed his excessive passion for “classic”
rock, which at the time was considered cutting edge music. I was the only
10-year old kid on the block who intimately KNEW the deep tracks of Black Sabbath,
Led Zeppelin, Rush, Queen, the Beatles, the Stones, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and
the Clash to mention a few of the artists exposed to my fledgling brain. I
spent all my allowance money from doing odd jobs around the house for my mom
and dad on vinyl album after album.
me in the center age 12; Dad with microphone; cousin Robb far right playing bass guitar
By the time I was in high school I had
already expanded my musical horizons to include classical music, metal, new
wave, Prince (a genre unto himself) and early hip hop. However, the most
important musical discovery for me, a kid who grew up playing guitar and
learning Yes and Van Halen songs note for note, was my discovery of electronic
music. My initial introduction to the genre was thanks to one of my father’s
co-workers who felt my dad needed some stress reduction. The cassette my dad
passed on to me without ever having listened to it was an incredibly dreamy and
hypnotizing album by French artist, Jean Michele Jarre, a 6-part electronic
suite called “Oxygene.” I instantly fell in love with this music which was far
removed from the majority of the structured stuff I devoured for half of my
young life. Every time I played this album I escaped in my mind to desert
islands, outer space, and other uncharted mental territories. However, as much
as I owe mad props to “Oxygene,” the album that initially led me deep down the
whirling path of music deconstruction and synthetic web-weaving, this is an ode
to my next discovery of the electronic genre, an album I have listened to over
7,000 times without exaggeration; an album that quite literally changed my life
and helped to mold my future as an artist.
In
1967, a German art student named Edgar Froese formed an experimental art-rock
band which he dubbed Tangerine Dream. The band, which went through a number of personnel
changes over the years, released 5 albums during the period of 1967-1973, known
affectionately as the Pink Years. The music, which began as an experimental
amalgamation of guitars, drums, flutes, and early sound generators, slowly
evolved into a more “structured” combination of traditional rock instruments
largely influenced by a combination of progressive rock, jazz fusion, and musique
concrete. Ultimately, it was Tangerine Dream’s next period, the Virgin years,
after signing with Richard Branson’s newly created Virgin Records, which would
culminate in the discovery of sound which, along with country fellowmen,
Kraftwerk, eventually influenced the electronic explorations of artists from David Bowie to
Afrika Bambata, Grand Master Flash, and the entire British new wave movement in
the late 70s/early 80s, the techno movement in the 1990s, and, most
importantly, the darker side of ambient music. Unfortunately, they also ushered
in the bland, watered-down new age music genre and eventually fell victim to
the uneventful and largely boring genre themselves for the next 30 years
onward. However, Froese, along with Peter Baumann and synthesizer/sequencer auteur,
Chris Franke, managed to create a handful of wonderfully original and
beautifully crafted electronic masterpieces before succumbing to the more
marketable new age drivel period, a ceaseless period that drones on like a hive
of tired, uninspired, honey-drunken bees.
Of the aforementioned Virgin years
releases, the album that stands out as the game-changer was the first of these
releases, 1974s “Phaedra.” From the moment I first heard the slowly fading in
of dark, deep space synthesizers and bubbling sequencer of the opening title track, a nearly 17 minute epic that can
hardly be accurately described in words, I was whisked away forever to the
furthest reaches of the Universe and to the deepest depths of the ocean.
According to Jim DeRogatis, author of several articles and books on
experimental and psychedelic music,"The creation of the album's title track was something of an accident; the band was rehearsing in the studio with a recently acquired Moog synthesizer, and the tape happened to be rolling at the time. They kept the results and later added guitar, flute and Mellotron performances. The cantankerous Moog, like many other early synthesizers, was so sensitive to changes in temperature that its oscillators would drift badly in tuning as the equipment warmed up and this drift can be heard on the final recording." The album, despite its unconventionality and experimental nature, reached #15 on the U.K. charts back in 1974 and helped solidify the band's vast reach and international notoriety.
After hearing the title track, which encompasses the entire first side of the cassette and vinyl versions of the album, I was completely blown away and could not wait for side 2. The opening track on the second half of the album is an aptly titled dream sequence called "Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares." It's dark, lush, and driven by the tape loop orchestrations of the unmistakable Mellotron. My entire family has been instructed, upon my death, to place a pair of headphones over my rigor mortis infused ears with this piece of music playing in eternal rotation via whatever prevailing media is available at the time of my demise. The battery, if a perpetual one has not been discovered by that time, is to be replaced regularly to ensure that my corpse receives a continuous supply of this incredible aural energy. Again, I am not going to attempt to describe the music as I am a firm believer in the Steve Martin or Frank Zappa quote (whichever source you believe): "talking about music is like dancing about architecture." I will just say that if you have ears and a brain to process the incoming sound waves then you must hear it for yourself. The next piece, "Movements of a Visionary," is exactly that: a moving, visionary piece of music driven by the sequencers which defined this era of Tangerine Dream's music. The album closes with a short, mysterious, hollow track of exquisite beauty called "Sequent C," leaving its listener in a desolate valley between enormous mountains of echoing ambience.It's the perfect close for the most important album in my life as a musician and explorer of sound. Like I said, I have listened to this album over 7,000 times. It comforts me during times of torment and uncertainty; it lulls me to sleep when i am plagued with insomnia; and it provides the backdrop for my studies in medicine. Most of all, it inspires me to continuously explore the possibilities of electronic music and to never lose sight of the fact that machines in the hands of passionate, creative individuals can be as life affirming as the beating heart of the most human of humans.
