Customer Reviews

Alpha Centauri

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After Froese and Schulze parted company in 1970, the band was lucky to find a replacement in Christopher Franke, an extremely talented musician, who will be one of the first people on earth to explore the power of synthesizers and translate technology into musical notes. From 1970 Franke and Froese will constitute a nucleus of the Tangerine Dream band, accompanied by more or less important temporary members. Unfortunately, after 18 years, their cooperation ended abruptly, with no particular benefit for what remained of Tangerine Dream.

Alpha Centauri, their second album, is a significant step forward in their career. The first change one notices immediately after turning the album on, is the quality of the sound. Unlike its predecessor, this album was not recorded in an old factory warehouse, but in a studio. Guitar is not a dominant sound anymore - it is messed into the musical texture that in turn consists of landscapes created by VCS3 synthesizer performed by Franke and "church-like" organs maneuvered by both Froese and Schroyder, the latter having a very temporary adventure with Tangerine Dream. Still, there is lots of experimental stuff in this recording. One does not have to look far - the whole "side B" of vinyl consists of a single, title track that does not possess a musical leading line. It is hard to digest only at the first trial or for "unaccustomed ears". Do not give up, however. Come back to Alpha Centauri every now and then and maybe, as I certainly hope, you will find a fly in a collision with Comas Sola somewhat attractive, even if pure historical reasons are not convincing for you at this time.

The second track is the most structured, which seems to be against their hitherto worshipped motto of complete freedom. Under heavy stratum of organs, we can dig the buried neoromantic tune - trying to catch it is by itself a pastime. Then they slowly progress with pompous symphonic schwung that culminates in hysteric looping of the tune and organs and blasted altogether with acoustic percussion solo by Christopher Franke. The whole album ends with German recitative. I love this language, although I understand as much as from Eskimo.

SUMMARY: buy if you like to experiment or if you are more and more into Tangerine Dream.

With Electronic Meditation, Tangerine Dream blew people's minds by intense guitar and drum jamming, making them easily categorized as a rock band. Then Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler abruptly left, replaced by Steve Schroyder (later briefly of Ash Ra Tempel) and a teenaged Chris Franke. With Alpha Centauri, the band abandoned most of the rock found on their previous album in place of deep space explorations. And you know you'll get something spacy when songs bears titles like "Sunrise in the Third System" and "Fly and Collision of Coma Solas". Most of rock's convention's are abandoned here with the sound of what sounds like a pipe organ and lots of spacy electronic effects. The only drums you'll find is near the end of "Fly & Collision" and that's as close to rock as you'll get here. The album then ends with the side length title track which is truly the ultime excurion in to deep space. I just love this stuff and I wonder why so many people these days listen to Jewel. For me, I feel Tangerine Dream's early material from the Ohr label (1970-1973) represents the band at their most interesting, even though it's not for everyone, like Alpha Centauri. Certainly if you're expecting some of their later, more upbeat electronic albums, you probably won't like this, but if you love unconventional space music like me, you're sure to like this.

Beautiful find! Pieces of this album have been floating on various compilations since the late 80's, but the album itself is much older. Ranking up with "Phaedra" and "Zeit" in intensity and haunting athmosphere, this 1971 album was one of the first "space music" records ever produced. It is also a good example of early Tangerine Dream work, before Edgar Froese took complete control of the band.

Produced two years before Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon", "Alpha Centauri" is a very dense album, with many synthesizer tonalities bordering on the psychedelic. Kraftwerk was doing approximately the same thing on their first two albums. Tangerine Dream was experimenting electronic minimalism, and the three tracks of the record are the first sign they were on the right path. "Alpha Centauri" has a very precise idea of what dreams should sound like - "Sunrise in the Third System" sketches a hallucinating landscape, further detailed in "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola" (a rather corny name by today's standards), then destroyed and re-created in "Alpha Centauri". The tracks skillfuly increase their duration, but in the end the listener is left with a lingering feeling that the album deserved to be longer than 40 minutes.

The TD line-up at the time of "Alpha Centauri" was Edgar Froese, Christoph Franke (his first appearance) and Steve Schroyder (his last), with guest performers Udo Dennebourg (flute and voice) and Roland Paulyck (synthesiser). This remastered release on CD provides a whole new perspective on music that is as refreshing today as the day it was released, with nuances of the original now rescued from the obscurity of the muddy old black vinyl pressing.

If you're unfamiliar with Tangerine Dream's early "Kosmische Musik" period, then this disc may come as something as a shock. It is, however, a good place to start an exploration of their early music. It contains an excellent cross-section of the styles of playing which characterised TD's early years, having meditative pieces with long drawn out organ chords over gurgling VCS3 oscillators, flighty flute lines woven through Christoph Franke's jazzy, often improvised drumming and, of course, a general other- or out-of-this-worldliness pervading everything. 'Sunrise in the Third System' is a short (4 mins) opener, which sets the scene for the music to follow. 'Fly and Collision of Comas Sola' is a longer (13 mins) epic, with more soaring, cosmic synthesiser sounds and organ chords over Froese's guitar strummings eventually being drowned out by a veritable battle between guest flautist, Udo Dennebourg, and Franke's increasingly frantic drumming--a true masterpiece! The main work on the disc is the 22 minute title-track, featuring some fascinating dialogue between flute, electric guitar, organ, various warbling electronic devices (mostly spacey-type VCS3 settings but also including such non-musical sources as coffee machine) and finally human voice, in the form of wordless chant and (heavily processed) dialogue! This is an exquisite precursor to the follow-up album, "Zeit".

As I mentioned earlier, this release has been remastered, allegedly from the original master tapes in TD's own Eastgate Studios. Be warned, however, that these tapes sound to be in a pretty dire state and one of the problems inherent in such remasterings is that as well as some details of the music being clearer, many of the defects become more exposed too! The opening moments of the disc, for example, have some appalling amplifier hum laid bare for all to hear and there are other moments throughout the disc when the original tapes sound to have saturated quite badly. That said, the sheer brilliance of this music soon drives such technical shortcomings from mind. (It helps to play the disc at a quieter level than normal too.)

Personally, I would have liked some longer silences between the tracks, too: all we get are a couple of seconds--just not enough between tracks of this intensity! I was disappointed too that half of the original record sleeve art-work as well as the original sleeve-notes, such as they were, have not made it into this production, either. All in all, then, I feel that there are sufficient niggles for me to dock an entire star from my rating of this disc. Bear in mind, too, that in common with most records of this vintage, this disc contains rather less than 40 minutes of music. I personally don't think that should put you off, of course, so go on, treat yourself!

(See also my other review of this disc on the amazon.co.uk site.)

I swear Alpha Centauri is the sequel to Pink Floyd's A Saucerful of Secrets. They sound so much alike it's not even funny right down to the psychedelic production and the atmospheric sounds and arrangements. Why this album hasn't been further discovered, examined and appreciated by music fans the world over is a great mystery.

Also worth noting- I picked up the 1991 CD version and despite being old, the sound quality is surprisingly terrific. I love it. Going with this version wouldn't be a bad idea at all, especially considering it's reasonably cheap at the moment.

Tangerine Dream manages to impress me even MORE. After Zeit, I didn't think it was possible for Tangerine Dream to floor me with an even crazier atmospheric psychedelic jam but... they sure did! I realize Zeit came out after this, but still... I heard Zeit first so that's where my impression of the bands atmospheric abilities lies.

The 22-minute title song is quite possibly the greatest song they ever made. It's not easy for me to just blurt out such an outrageous comment either. You're probably thinking "Come on! The GREATEST thing ever? Really dude?" Yup, for real! Tangerine Dream has its share of breathtakingly incredible songs in their humongous discography, but something about "Alpha Centauri" takes it to a whole new level of enjoyment.... and fear! The ultimate definition of adventurous ambience.

Without further delay I should mention that it took me plenty of replays to actually get into "Alpha Centauri". I had to hear it 8 times in a row to make *anything* out of it. That's not an easy obstacle right there- devoting 2 hours and 40 minutes to ONE song, haha. It's kind of funny looking back on it, but that's exactly what I had to do in order to appreciate it. I knew there was something appealing about all the sparse arrangements, otherwise I wouldn't have tortured myself the way I did.

Well tonight a few more listens turned out to be the confirmation I finally needed to declare that this is, unquestionably, the ultimate psychedelic jam. Obviously inspired by the late 60's spaced out (and drugged out) version of Pink Floyd, this manages to go one step beyond anything they ever did. What strikes me especially hard is that the 22-minute track manages to combine two crucial elements of what I consider absolute satisfaction in music. That being, combining pretty arrangements and spooky arrangements, and utilizing them *at the same time*.

The prettiness comes in the way of melodic and heavenly flute solos. I love those parts of the jam the most. The creepiness comes in the way of... everything else, haha. Imagine the darkest moments of Zeit with pretty flutes, and you'll have this. The organs absolutely TERRIFY me. They are played so depressingly and used just right for the perfect effect. WOW is it good!

The excitement doesn't end there. The 14-minute "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola" is equally as impressive, this time taking melodic flute solos and playing them over an organ for most of the track. It not only works, but reminds me of early psychedelic Pink Floyd almost instantly. It never drags either which is quite the incredible surprise.

I highly recommend Alpha Centauri after Zeit. It's worth it. I think it seriously might be a strong contender for best album Tangerine Dream ever created.

I like the older Albums that Tangerine Dream has made. The album Alpha Centauri is more of a experimental ambient-space album. The group took a chance and came up with a landmark album. When I heard this album I was very pleased with the atmosphere is manifested in my mind. I'm an artist and purchase albums based on how inspirational they are. Alpha Centauri is a extreamly inpirational album and was a must buy for me.

It's the best CD of electronic music (alongside with "Oxygene" ) Ilove the cosmic aura created by Frose's classical inferenced mellotron, the dreamy flute sound, and Chris Frankie's fascinating drumming in "Fly And Collision Of Comas Sola" make me feel sure that he's one of the best drummer ever in rock history (why ya he latter give up drums altogether!). The title track, "Alpha Centuri", slowly progressing... very intense, like a more crafted version of Pink Floyd's "INterstellar overdrive", but stand on its own. Weired musical LSD...

In their early years (1969-1973) Tangerine Dream never failed to produce works that were COMPLETELY WEIRD, while at the same time sounding totally awesome. Take the title track on this CD, for instance. Lots and lots of organ and pastoral flute, with the occaisonal synthesizer wash, and right when you're about to fall asleep, this voice comes in and a choir ends the work! Where'd they get that!?
Or take the track "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola" (fabulously cool title!). This is my 2nd favorite TD piece ever, next to Phaedra. The piece sounds like another drawn-out kosmische space track, but then at around 9:00 some drums start to creep up through the mix. At 10:38 they blast out over everything else with all the fury of a King Crimson jam.
I would recommend this disc to anyone who is familiar with TD's later, mid-70s work so they can hear the "other side" of the band. Or anyone who likes really spacey, ground-breaking stuff. Or anyone who likes really heavy organ pieces. A very good 2nd effort from an innovative band.

Another great TD album, from the early years. Some people dislike AC, but this album is definitively the birth of the spacial-relaxing-dark sound that TD recorded after.
The formation is very interesting, Froese's guitars interruptions and noises are very creative and atipical. Franke's drums on Fly and collision... are something out of this planet, including the oriental-greek-like flute that appears in the middle of this track and in the last song, the title-track.
Schroyder's organ, specially Farfisa organ gives a relax sensation, like a medieval time, but not in planet Earth !It's interesting, rustic, experimental, but more linear than Zeit, the next album that is more apocalyptic, dense, visceral, everything in a VERY slowly dose... if it's possible !
Alpha centauri is an interesting point to start TD discography. And a final commet: 80's and 90's are pure pop-synth thing... a few things interesting....the early years are much more intense and creative, many people on new age stuff heard TD... there's no doubt !

This album takes a more structured approached than their first album.
With it's very haunting sounds and creepy organ, it is much more ambient than their previous album.
The first track is a very good opening track, though it seems just like an intro to the second track which is one of my favorite songs ever. The second song "Fly and Collision in Comas Sola" is a very emotion filled track giving you the feeling of being in a formless place while it is gaining shape; though at first it seems slow at the end it really picks up with the percussion.
The last track is very nice and a bit more structured than track 2, but it doesn't in my opinion make as much of an impression as the first one.
If you like crazy krautrock and ambient, exploring new types of music, or love TD, then you should get this album. Though I stress, this is NOTHING like mainstream music and should be at all costs avoided by a person with the slightest hint of a closed minded attitude.