Music
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Music |
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| Recommendations linking directly to Amazon.com |
Klaus Krieger and Steve Joliffe join for the album Cyclone, one of their few albums with lyrics, but only Krieger remains for Force Majeure, Krieger’s last album. Johannes Schmoelling joins for Tangram, one of the most quintessential Schmoelling-era Tangerine Dream albums. They then have two albums with shorter compositions, Thief and Exit, before producing more of their longer compositions with Logos Live (another of their wonderfully dark melodic soundscapes), Pergamon, Hyperborea, and White Eagle. Poland, the last album with Johannes Schmoelling, is full of dark synthesizer patches and layered sequence loops; the first ten minutes of the title track of the album are a minimalist sequencing extravaganza that clearly sets the precedent for the Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds about a decade later. The later collection Tangents gathers many related compositions from the post-Green Desert era and remixes them, and produces a few previously unreleased ones as well.
After Poland, they move to lighter sounds and shorter compositions with Paul Haslinger on Underwater Sunlight, Livemiles, and Le Parc, and a another brief flirtation with lyrics (by William Blake) in Tyger, and then the final album with Chris Franke: Canyon Dreams. By the era of Optical Race, they have clearly moved into a world of wordless electronic rock’n’roll, continued by Lily on the Beach. Melrose introduces Jerome Froese, Edgar’s son, on the last album with Paul Haslinger. Edgar and son move on to Rockoon, which brings the band to yet another new sound, and begins to shine on 220 Volt Live and Turn of the Tides (other than the pointless Mussorgsky tribute at the beginning). Tyranny of Beauty and Goblins’ Club weren’t memorable, but The Dream Mixes and TimeSquare: Dream Mixes II caught my ear as the Froeses showed that Tangerine Dream was one of the roots of techno music and they could do it as well as the new kids. Tournado is a recent concert album and frequent resident of my CD player, Oasis another soundtrack, and Ambient Monkeys a recent creation that hasn’t caught my ear yet.
Jean-Michel Jarre is another of the founders of space music. Oxygene is his most definitive early work; Oxygene 7–13 came twenty years later, carrying on the same spirit into the techno era. Equinoxe and Magnetic Fields are of similar vintage and bouquet as Oxygene. Zoolook sampled unusual ethnic noises long before Deep Forest was on the scene; it is considerably different from his other work, and my mother can’t stand to listen to it. Revolutions has some good bits, though I usually only listen to parts of it.
Ozric Tentacles are mostly an instrumental rock group, with plenty of high-energy electric guitars. Jurassic Shift and Strangeitude are available at Amazon.com; Arborescence is also a good album, but Amazon.com seems not to have heard of it.
Mike Oldfield is hard to classify. He has long instrumental compositions that are somewhere between electronic rock and folk rock; he uses synthesizers, but plenty of physical instruments as well. Tubular Bells was famous for its role as the theme for The Exorcist; The Orchestral Tubular Bells is an orchestrated version that is a hoot to listen to once you know the original. Tubular Bells 2 is a sequel to the original album, and is also excellent. Amarok is another of his best in this vein. Ommadawn and Hergest Ridge are earlier works, also worth having if you’ve found that you enjoy his more popular pieces.
William Orbit is another one that is hard to classify. He uses synthesizers and sampling, but somehow doesn’t quite register as techno, even on the tracks that have speed and power appropriate to techno. He released Strange Cargo, Strange Cargo 2, and Strange Cargo 3 under his own name; the fourth album, Hinterland, is under the name Strange Cargo. Orbit and a few others form Torch Song, which released Toward the Unknown Region, which also has a strong Orbit flavor. If you’re interested in any of the things on this page, see if you can listen to a few tracks of his; you will probably like it.
Steve Roach produces awesome music, in the original sense of the word. Works like The Magnificent Void and On This Planet are dark, powerful, sonorous creations that will give your subwoofers a serious workout without going into a montonous thumping rock’n’roll bass, majestic with the power of a stormy ocean at midnight. His creations like the double album World’s Edge, The Lost Pieces, and The Dream Circle (a limited edition creation) are equally dark, but cool and meditative.
Michael Stearns is another contender in the “ethereal” category. I first encountered his work in the soundtrack to the movie Chronos, one of the excellent films from Ron Fricke. His album Sacred Site has a number of good pieces, including the theme from the movie Baraka, for which he did most of the soundtrack. He even worked with Steve Roach on the albums Desert Solitaire and Kiva, which are quite listenable, though not as intense as the work on the other albums mentioned here.
Constance Demby’s Novus Magnificat is the best of her works, a pair of long compositions that needed to fit onto an LP once upon a time. Set Free is a collection of shorter pieces, some of which are quite good.
Most of the techno you see here qualifies as “trance” techno, if I understand the genre properly.
The Orb is one of the classic techno groups. I recommend U.F.Orb as the definitive introduction. The double album The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld contains the classic Little Fluffy Clouds, an addictive sequencer extravaganza. Orblivion is their most recent creation, which boasts the awesome track Toxygene. I found Live ’93 to be fairly uninspiring, and Orbus Terrarum never quite caught my ear.
Delerium are a group with an interesting evolution. I first discovered them with Semantic Spaces, a relatively recent album, with breathy female vocals overlaid on chanting monks, all of it backed up by excellent synthesizers. Their most recent work, Karma, continues in this vein with a number of guest vocalists including Sarah McLachlan and Jacqui Hunt from Single Gun Theory. Their earlier work, such as Euphoric, Spheres II, Stone Tower, and Syrophenikan, is interesting though a great deal harsher than Semantic Spaces.
Enigma is another pioneer of the “sampled Gregorian chant and sexy female vocals” sub-genre. MXMXC A.D. is excellent, and The Cross of Changes a worthy successor, though not as impressive as the first album. I hardly listen to Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!, their third.
I first discovered Banco de Gaia from their double album Last Train to Lhasa, which has all the energy of the Orb and a more Eastern feel. It remains my favorite album of theirs, though the more recent Big Men Cry gives it a run for its money. Maya, an earlier work, is also well worth having in your collection.
Juno Reactor is another group with a powerful electronic sound, on the order of the Orb. I first discovered their Bible of Dreams CD, with the excellent tracks High Energy Protons and God is God. Inspired, I picked up Transmissions (which debuted High Energy Protons) and Beyond the Infinite, which were also very listenable.
I discovered the Spirit Zone label— a European import— when I picked up the collection Global Psychedelic Trance Volume 3. They have a number of good bands, including Ololiuqui (whose self-titled album isn’t currently available at Amazon.com), Star Sounds Orchestra (whose Psy Force is worth getting), and the S.U.N. Project (who have the albums Drosophilia and Macrophage). You have to search pretty hard to find some of these artists, since they’re not commonly available in the United States. All of them are characterized by a strongly electronic sound with a good beat; the CD cases (which are plastic and cardboard rather than the usual jewel boxes) have the metronome beats-per-minute ratings next to the songs’ running times, probably as an aid to DJ’s. If you like Juno Reactor, try any of them.
The Grid is another import. Their album Evolver is a great piece of techno, with great synths, intriguing samples, and the occasional blazing guitar solo. 4 5 6 has some rap vocals that I program out of my CD player, but tracks like Face the Sun and Crystal Clear are worth the price of admission, and Fire Engine Red is a completely deranged parodic high-tech love song. (I think it’s a tongue-in-cheek parody. If it’s not, I’d be really worried about the writer...)
A Positive Life’s Synaesthetic has many strong tracks, with a powerful beat and growling synthesizers that made it a perfect accompaniment to playing X-Com UFO Defense. I’m hoping there will be another album sometime.
When I first ran into Deep Forest, I heard the very calm, meditative track The First Twilight on their first album, Deep Forest. When I picked up the album, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a copy of Jean-Michel Jarre’s Zoolook had fallen on fertile soil and grown some a respectable descendent, completely with a rock’n’roll beat and chanting pygmies. Boheme and Comparsa follow different ethnicities and are good listening, but do not stand out to me as much as their first album.
Higher Intelligence Agency is good example of this subgenre, not as powerful as the Orb but still possessing a good beat. Their albums Colourform and Freefloater are both good.
Single Gun Theory mesmerized me with their most recent album, Flow, River of my Soul, and I quickly learned to like its predecessor Like Stars in my Hands, filled with Jacqui Hunt’s gorgeous alto voice and the unusual selection of samples. (I was quite impressed that they attributed their samples in the liner notes of the album!) Their first, Exorcise This Wasteland, is listenable but not extremely ear-catching. For some reason, no one seems to be carrying their more recent work; you may have to go directly to their label, Nettwerk, to find them.
Vapourspace’s is another group in the vein of the Higher Intelligence Agency, with strong melodies as well as a good beat. Their excellent album Themes from Vapourspace seems to be absent from Amazon.com, but Sweep is still available.
Global Communication provides a variety of electronic rock, running from fairly swift-moving to the calm and ethereal. Try 76:14 first; it’s their best album. If you enjoy 76:14’s more ethereal moments, try Remotion (which is a set of remixes of titles I don’t recognize) and Pentamorous Metamorphosis (apparently another remix of some sort).