Biography of Tangerine Dream

Formed as a rock group in 1967 by Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream is one of the most important entities to shape contemporary instrumental music over the last 20 years. The turbulent '60s, Froese's association with surrealist painter Salvador Dali, and the arrival of the Moog synthesizer were just a few of the forces that helped to fuel this German electronic group through a barrage of constant change in style and personnel. Core members over the years have included Froese and Chris Franke as well as Peter Baumann, who went on to start the Private Music label. Curiously enough, the band's most recent addition is Jerome Froese, Edgar's son, whose enigmatic photos as a baby can be found in the artwork to TD's early albums. Over the past 25 years or so, the TD sound has moved from the droning nightmares of Zeit, to the mesmerizing sequencer-based masterpieces of Rubycon and Ricochet in the '70s, to the sparkling high-tech rock of the '80s. A cult phenomenon for decades, Tangerine Dream gained wider recognition when the group's highly evocative music attracted the interest of William Friedkin. This resulted in the score to the film Sorcerer and the beginning of a large number of soundtracks. (TD's music for the Tom Cruise scorcher, Risky Business, probably attracted the most attention.) In recent years, Tangerine Dream has moved toward shorter, song-based pieces that seem superficial and predictable compared to the group's pioneering work, yet Froese and company must be admired for TD's continuous output and place in electronic-music history. ~ Linda Kohanov