This album occupies a special position in the progression series of the Berlin band. Because while Tangerine Dreams early works were characterized by an woven and pulsating coming and going electronic sounds, which sometimes revealed room for their own notes, the Phaedra published in early 1974 was significantly more structure.
It was made possible by an analog Moog sequencer, whose bass sounds sometimes formed the rhythmic backbone, around which Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christoph Franke draped cosmic sounds with synthesizers, organ, e-piano and mellotron. In this respect, it is not exaggerated to celebrate the four tracks comprehensive original album as a milestone of electronic music, on an equal footing with contemporaries such as power plant or Harmonia. The technical challenges during the recordings in Richard’s Branson’s “The Manor Studio” can only be guessed at, especially since moss was definitely not one thing at the time: stable.
The pioneering budget Phaedra now appears for his birthday, de facto the 51st, as a set with five CDs and a Blu-ray, complete with outtakes, a live recording from the Victoria Theater from June 1974 and Steven Wilsons 5.1 mix. The package was released in the 16 CD box in Search of Hades 1973-1979 in 2019, but it has now been out of print. An illustrated book by the Tangerine Dream connoisseur Wouter Bessel is new to the package.
You can find out which albums were still published in April 2025 via our monthly publication list.