Tangerine Dream - Fly and Collision of Comas Sola (complete) скачать в хорошем качестве

Tangerine Dream - Fly and Collision of Comas Sola (complete)

From 'Alpha Centauri' (1971) Ohr Records, Berlin, Germany. All artwork and photo's from the original 1971 album and inserts. Note : needs to be played loud on good speakers to appreciate the amazing zither synthesiser, 'dawn of creation' keyboards, and thunderous drumming accompanied by lotus flute which ends the piece ! Fan review - This is more like it! The second Tangerine Dream album is a huge improvement over the first one. At least in one objective way: as far as I know, it is the first ever electronic album to be fully dedicated to the atmosphere of astral travelling. We may reasonably argue that Pink Floyd did this stuff earlier, and we may even not unreasonably argue that Pink Floyd did this stuff better, but Pink Floyd certainly did not have the gall to dedicate an entire forty-minutes to one grand Cosmic Suite. Especially a forty-minute Cosmic Suite that set up some rules for all, or most, of the subsequent ambient compositions. Anyway, here's the lowdown to you: after the departure of Schulze and Schnitzler, Froese teamed up with young avant-garde jazz drummer Christopher Franke, turned him into a young avant-garde keyboardist and formed the second core lineup of Tangerine Dream. For this particular album, the talents of two more keyboardists (Steve Schroyder and Roland Paulick) were also used, and Udo Dennebourg contributes flute. As for the compositions, there are only three - a short introduction ('Sunrise In The Third System'), and the two lengthy tracks - one apparently describing the actual journey to Alpha Centauri ('Fly And Collision Of Comas Sola'), and the second one dedicated to the stay on the system ('Alpha Centauri', true enough). And it's all very nice-sounding, indeed. One thing I miss are the wild guitar solos; Froese seriously limits his licks on here, and for the most part, makes the guitar passages subordinate to the keyboards, or perhaps he just plugs all of his guitars through synthesizers, making them sound "keyboardish" (kinda like Steve Hackett used to do during his work with Genesis). But the lack of guitar heroics is compensated by a sense of... a sense of SENSE, I'd say. This is truly an atmospheric record, able to take you places if you wish, with a well-defined structure and purpose. 'Sunrise In The Third System' slowly and solemnly builds up on a rising wave of organ sounds, against which Froese weaves his subtle "wobbling" guitar lines - and forms a perfect introduction to the main cosmic journey. 'Fly And Collision Of Comas Sola' is true to the title. The first part is the 'fly', a lengthy, static organ pattern backed up with calm flute noises, which then slowly, slowly, deadly slowly gives way to a barrage of astral noise which brings on the 'collision' part: the organ dies away and is replaced by a wild, crashing drum onslaught. Yeah, Schulze did some mad drumming on the previous album, too, but there it was unpredictable (in a bad sense - you never knew when you had to cover up your eardrums) and pointless; here, Franke's drumming - I'm assuming it's Franke on the drums, although I could be wrong - represents either some sort of cosmic battle or just one cosmic body crashing into another. Whatever it is, it's firmly in place. The title track lacks these moments of wildness - presumably, we're already supposed to be exploring the system and admiring the miracles of otherworldly life, instead of participating in gigantic space battles. Lots of white noise here, but lots of mood-setting organs and relaxing flutes as well, for about eighteen minutes or so, until it all reaches a solemn culmination in the "grand finale", with church organ and overdubbed 'harmonies' - I actually hesitate to call them that, as 'stoned out echoey screaming' sounds more like it, but it's well-organized and arranged screaming; remember, Alpha Centauri is anything but a chaotic album. Everything here is pre-planned and calculated, and I sure prefer it to the wild-eyed self-indulgent ambitious "jamming" of Electronic Meditation. Arguably, Alpha Centauri is the first ever ambient album (although I admit that the question 'what was the first ever ambient album?' is only second in stupidity and pointlessness to the question 'what was the first ever punk album?': there are miriads of candidates for the job, from T.D. to Cluster to Mike Oldfield to Brian Eno to Philip Glass, and it all depends on our definition of the limits of Ambient as a genre). But even if it isn't the first, or it isn't ambient at all, calling it just a rip-off of some Floydian textures seems rather far-fetched to me. Doubtlessly, the album had a lot of innovative value in its time, and as far as these kinds of 'astral soundtrack thingies' go, it's still perfectly enjoyable in our times - even despite the fact that there are way too few musical ideas displayed on here.