phaedra

Tangerine Dream found their signature sound with the sweeping synthesized soundscapes of this mythic musical milestone.  The trio of Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann, and Christopher Franke had secured a five year contact with Virgin Records with the acclaim of their previous three albums ('Alpha Centauri',  'Zeit', and 'Atem') and a demo called 'Green Desert' that Franke and Froese recorded at Skyline studios in Berlin.  Franke bought a Moog modular synthesizer with part of the advance from Virgin.  

Their first sessions for their new label featured Edgar Froese on production, mellotron, guitar, bass, VCS 3 synthesizer, organ, and the cover painting;  Peter Baumann on organ, electric piano, VCS 3 synthesizer, and flute;  and Christopher Franke on moog synthesizer, and VCS 3 synthesizer.  Froese reveals:  "The first recording session took place on Nov 20th 1973 in the Manor near Oxford. Until this session Tangerine Dream had only improvised. 'Phaedra' was the first album in which many things had to be structured. The reason was that we were using the Moog sequencer (all driving bass notes) for the first time. Just tuning the instrument took several hours each day, because at the time there were no pre-sets or memory banks. We worked each day from 11 o'clock in the morning to 2 o'clock at night. By the 11th day we barely had 6 minutes of music on tape. Technically everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The tape machine broke down, there were repeated mixing console failures and the speakers were damaged because of the unusually low frequencies of the bass notes. After 12 days of this we were completely knackered. Fortunately, after a two day break in the countryside a new start brought a breakthrough. 'Mysterious Semblance' was recorded on Dec 4th. Pete and Chris were asleep after a long day's recording session so I invited my wife, Monique, into the studio. I called in the studio engineer and recorded it in one take on a double-keyboaded Mellotron while Monique turned the knobs on a phasing device. This piece is on the record exactly as it was recorded that day. And this practice was to continue for the rest of the session."

'Phaedra' went gold in seven countries, charting at number one hundred and ninety-six in the US and fifteen in the UK.  





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'Phaedra' 
full album:



1 Phaedra 0:00
2 Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares 16:48
3 Movements Of A Visionary 27:34
4 Sequent 'C' 35:32