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"Phaedra" was the album that brought Tangerine Dream to the attention of many outside of Germany and was John Peel's album of the year for 1974.
By this point, the Tangs had gone through monumental changes in the scope of their music, from the amazing blitzkrieg of "Electronic Meditation" and "Alpha Centuari" to the pre-cursor of modern ambient music with "Zeit," which was the band's first forays into the then still primitive world of the Moog synthesizer.
"Phaedra" is a very controlled effort, and shows that Froese/Franke/Baumann had made serious strides in their use of the Moog and other synthesizers. The results are beautifully spaced out, mixing the synths with Froese's still-present guitar (though not for long). Still, the pieces are easily accessable, and that makes it a classic.
While in my book not as groundbreaking as their first 3 lp's, "Phaedra" did open the door to international success for Tangerine Dream to walk through- and they have never looked back. In many ways their most realized effort.
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If you ever sat around thinking about the premise of ambient music - if the concept of a 'soundscape' is something that interests you, rather than a hacked-together neologism - if you care to hear music created without regard to rules or discipline or tradition - then you must hear this album.
"We're stuck on a dream of the future," said a friend, marveling that this 1972 album sunds like something towards which modern ambient writers might still aspire. People who applaud Tangerine Dream for 'exploring the genre of ambient music' are missing the point. This was not exploration of a genre. This was a few hippies sitting around with a Moog, some theremins, some wires, and a vision. Ambient came afterwards - it required an overanalytic geek to step in and write a couple of books on the theory and practice, and, why, who's that happening to be walking by - yes, it's Brian Eno.
Never mind music for airports. This is music for deep clear night in a redwood forest under the stars. You should listen to it.
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There are different kinds of fans of Tangerine Dream music, so to understand my reviews, you must understand my tastes. I prefer their later works, with songs that are harmonious, rhythmic, lyrical, and "pretty." Their first excellent album for me was Underwater Sunlight. You might find (by reading lots of reviews) that the people who love TDream's early work dislike the later albums; people who like the later albums don't like the early stuff. I am the 2nd type. Of my 22 or so TDream albums so far, the greatest ones (in approximate order) are: Le Parc, Underwater Sunlight, Architecture in Motion, Private Music, Goblins' Club, Optical Race, Melrose, Lily on the Beach. OK albums are: Tang-go, Force Majeure, Exit. Unpleasant albums are: Turn of the Tides, Rockoon, Stratosfear, Phaedra, Atem, Alpha Centauri, Elect. Meditation, or anything else pre '83. This album is too trippy, psychedelic, and dissonant for me - barely separable from the Analog Space Music TDream began with. If you like pleasant music, you won't like this album.
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I've first came across Tangerine Dream in a second-hand record shop, where "Phaedra" was brought to my attention owing to its artistic cover with that blue blured, nebulous figure - I bought that record and played it at home. This was something I had never heard before - the mysterious "Phaedra" (the name derives from Greek mythology) starts with weird synth sounds, fading and rising into the heart of the track, where Moog sequencer is heavily used as a base, then layered by various assemblence of other voices like screaming birds, barking, all kinds of ethereal sounds and organ. TD's music is difficult to describe, it has to be experienced. Another master-piece, "The mysterious semblance..." is built on a short synth repeatitive theme, combined with strange copter, wind and snow sounds, which sometimes take over... this album is strongly ambiental, it's easy to picture all kinds of landscapes and different part of Earth or even a space for that matter. After "Phaedra", I've purchased several other TD albums like its successor, "Rubycon", but they've left me somehow dissapointed when I've compared them to "Phaedra". If you like Jean-Michel Jarre's earlier works or you're into ambient and techno, then this is a good CD to complete your discography.
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I first heard this late one night in 1974 on FM radio, coupled with Kraftwerk's "Autobahn". They were both new bands from an odd place for pop music (Germany). Autobahn was too pedestrian for me at the time, and Phaedra was too weird. I now have both albums, and can appreciate both for what they are - classics, and well ahead of their time.
Edgar Froese explains somewhere how the whole thing was recorded semi-live. For example, the synth bass line (Moog) in the title track comes in, then changes pitch because they realised while recording that it wasn't in tune.
"Mysterious semblance" was recorded in one take using just a Mellotron and a phase box. According to Froese, he recorded it late in the morning after an all night session. The whole album has a dreamlike feel - a mixture of drifting and eeriness.
A late edit (Feb 2003) - one amazing thing about this album is how visual the title track manages to be. Reviewer after reviewer uses the same imagery "exploding nebulae, coloured clouds of gas" etc - for years, I was certain the cover of the original LP featured an orange-cloured swirling birth-of-a-star space picture, and I was surprised when I eventually bought the CD to find that the cover art was totally different. I had been remembering my visual impressions of the music!
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