Rating:  -
I have been a HUGE Tangerine Dream fan since the late '80s. I was very excited to purchase all of their older albums at that time and listened with great anticipation and sweet satisfaction to every one.
Phaedra was a bit of a disappointment for me. Phaedra, although it was something completely new and revolutionary as far as music goes, seemed to be directionless and dispassionate.
TD were still in the process of taming the musical beast known as he Moog synthesizer and I get the impression that they were still trying to get a feel as to exactly what they could do with it.
Yes. Phaedra was unlike anything ever heard at the time and the music is very spacey and atmospheric, but it really doesn't go anywhere. There are a few points that the music evokes certain feelings, but just when you get into it, the tone or timbres shift without warning and the mood is lost.
I do still listen to this CD from time to time, just to understand where TD came from and to appreciate how much they've evolved over the years. I do, however recommend "Phaedra 2005" which is basically the same album, but updated with "modern" synthesizers and keyboards and contains a newly recorded track "Delfi". This version seems to have a bit more going for it than the original. It is available through TD's website www.tangerinedream.org.
Peace
Rating:  -
I was introduced to this album along with "YOU" by Gong on the same evening. Needless to say, I haven't been the same since. I was into so-called "progressive rock" at the time. Groups as disparate as Jethro Tull, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, ELP and Yes, and perhaps everyone else, were trying to "out space" each other. Tangerine Dream were, quite frankly, the most far out of them all. In fact, they dispensed with drums, bass and vocals altogether (leaving three guys on a stage with keyboards (Kraftwork, anyone?). Picture it as a "Steve Reich meets King Crimson meets Gong" instrumental type of art. This stuff has since been done to death, but, at the time, it was truly breathtaking. The music is similar to some so-called "serious" European composers of the era. Phaedra is, to my ears, the first strong, cohesive album of the group and marks their departure from an initial experimental phase into their classic period. This album was highly influential, preceeding Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" and the Vangelis "Chariots of Fire" music and serving as an obvious influence. New comers to this music may think there is nothing special here. That is because there has been a whole industry of film music based on the style of this group. In fact, Tangerine Dream later produced a number of film scores ("Sorcerer" being one of the first). Tangerine Dream were also pioneers for such new Wave groups as Ice House and what passed as "Eurodance" music of the '90s. Firmly rooted in the classical traditions of Stockhausen, Steve Reich and Terry Rielly,as well as the avant Garde Jazz and "progressive rock", Tangerine Dream crosses all styles and represents none (I like to think of it as music you would listen to as you float in a spacesuit around Werner Von Braun's space station). They are one of the few truly innovative and original groups around. Call them "noise makers"? Maybe. However, a good definition of "music" is "organized sound". THAT definition describes them well. Phaedra is one of their best albums. Check it out!!
Rating:  -
Like every album, some say it's a masterpiece, some say it's a disaster.
I respect both, for me, this album is overrated. It is hard to find any melody in this, it looks like the keyboard player fell asleep on his keyboard, just like I felt asleep on my lazy boy. Another overrated product.
Rating:  -
I'm not really of fan of ambient music. I never really have been to be honest. But Tangerine Dream's Pheadra (and similar works by TD and ex-member Klaus Schulze's solo material) is an exception. The music is dreamy and slow moving, yet over time creates a very tense mood. It's wonderful late night music and drifting off to sleep listening to it is a great musical experience. The music pulsates and shifts from form to form like a hazy dream. I don't really have much to say about it except that if you're looking to experience ambient, minimalistic electronic music, this is the perfect place to find it.
Rating: -
Though it has been said many times, let it be said again: Tangerine Dream's masterpiece Phaedra is the finest work of electronica ever made. You will not find a more creative or imaginative work of electronic music. After Phaedra, all other works of the genre have a "been there, done that" feel that cannot be shaken.
This album not only demonstrated the true potential of electronic music but represented its pinnacle. It is a work unsurpassed in beauty, unequalled in eloquence, and untarnished though a hundred years pass it by. With Phaedra, Tangerine Dream let the world hear a new Mozart, unfettered by the limitations of conventional instruments. If there is a single album of electronica that will be remembered in 2050, it will be Phaedra. All others will be almost forgotten, whispered of.
Electronica now has a reputation for being "mood music," either "relaxing" or perhaps "energizing." It is often conflated with "new age" and other types of elevator music, at best discount therapy, like those candles or bubble baths that promise a cessation to self loathing. Electronica today is primarily repetitive, soulless beats, undeserving of the precious life it takes to endure them. Modern electronica has forgotten the lessons taught by Phaedra. Modern electronica is a disgrace, a sham.
But what is so great about this album? I challenge you to listen to it. Wearing naught but headphones, lie lonely in a dark room, half-asleep, the sounds of Phaedra illuminating your universe like a star that burns with no one but yourself to know it ever existed. You will travel to places you have never been, live lives whose pages are but dust. It is the girl you never met but kissed, oh so briefly, in a dream, and that one moment sealed your fate. Who is she?
This is music to accompany the urban cowboy, his desert the empty wastes of space, his herd the empty bleeting of consumerist society. Let no one tell you differently. In the music of Phaedra, a life that has no meaning will at last make sense. Time will stop, and so will you. Let Phaedra sing you to sleep, and you will never wake again.
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