Customer Reviews

Ambient Monkeys

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The year 1997 brought us an enormous flood of releases from Edgar Froese's new label, TDI. He wanted to have his own company for a long time. Finally, when he started doing business on his own, we were treated to a dubious selection of releases, barely a half of which should ever see the light of day. The band's followers have always demanded more releases from the past, since there is no real obstacle to produce CDs with concerts, soundtracks, whatever. TO some extent, TDI met our expectations, and to date, three albums from the Classic Era and Hyperborean Era were released, either as compilations of rarities like "Ancient Dreams", or full-fledged albums like "Soundmill Navigator" or "Sohoman". Still, as I said, some new releases are hard to justify, and the album I am reviewing is among them.

"Ambient Monkeys" is indeed a bizarre release. In spring of 1997, the Froeses visited England and Poland, touring to promote their newest studio album, "Goblins Club". Every gig was preceded by a prerecorded tape with ambient "environmental" sound wallpaper, into which a tune or two was interlaced. Sure, when you await a concert, standing in a crowd, often in a cold air, you might just as well listen to some muzak than to nothing at all. Such is "Ambient Monkeys" - a mere mixed collection of these tapes. The quality of sound is abysmal, and I think on purpose, since everything is muted away, giving priority to screams of monkeys, synthesized trains, and other voices of nature. Well, sampling is interesting if there's an actual message the composer wants to convey. Here, this is a background music. At least the band had the minimum minimorum of decency to admit that on the album cover, so that you know what you're buying. Yes, I was tempted, since I saw a few classical numbers in the tracklist. What I got was 20 seconds of Bach, 15 seconds of Mozart, and so on - all to the accompaniment of samples of screaming monkeys. I wonder, have I woken up in an asylum, or what? Hello?????????? Is there anybody out there?????????

The artwork is as usual excellent, but that's hardly a reason to buy this c.d., released due to "demand". The music is actually ambient sounds and sequences written by TD, and played before concerts. Any song you latch onto is over before you know it. Tangerine Dream is worth a listen, but start somewhere else.

The disclaimer inside the CD explains that this is the ambient music used for pre-show atmosphere. It's nothing but animal samples and non-structured random sounds. Supposedly they produced this album in response to fan request. Seems TD is packaging every snip of music (good or bad) and getting it out to market. My major complaint with the album is that they should have put the information about the source of the music on the outside of the album.

This album contains some 45 minutes of ambient sounds used pre-concert during Tangerine Dream's 1997 European tour. The fact that the concert-goers were demanding this probably says more about the quality of the music played during the concert, than it says about the particular worth of anything to be found here!

The material consists mostly of a mostly fascinating mix of animal and bird noises, other natural sounds (rain falling; waves breaking) together with some sounds from the man-made world (the clatter of railroad cars over gaps in the track; traffic noises) overlaid with standard Tangerine Dream synthesiser and sequencer elements. The disc is divided into some 12 tracks, although the ambient sound plays continuously, shifting gradually from element to element as the disc progresses, usually with no regard for the track divisions and the subsequent changes in the synthesised elements. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that this is in any way one of those wishy-washy "synthesiser music over sounds of the natural world" discs. The ambient element is far too strong (and, it has to be said, interesting) for that and it would be more accurate to describe "Ambient Monkeys" as "sounds of the natural world heard over a backdrop of wishy-washy synthesiser music"!

Most of the tracks are quite short (or at least, the synthesised components of them are). The longest, and probably most interesting is the first, `Token from Birdland', which runs for some 6 minutes or so. The opening mixes train noises with a cacophony of jungle calls (monkeys and birds) and some quite appropriate synthesiser bursts before a sequencer jingle and drum machine pulse comes in to spoil it all. It does settle down in places to provide some interesting suggestions of earlier Tangerine Dream works-at times it sounds a bit like a rendition of `Epsilon in Malaysian Pale' crossed with `The Cliffs of Sydney'-and isn't at all bad.

After the opener, the only track that tries in any way to connect the ambient sounds to the other material is `Moon marble', which has a primitive jungle beat and chant, and so at least makes some sense of the roaring jungle sounds it contains. The addition of some seeming radio communications in the middle is a lovely surreal touch! Most of the rest of the disc is fairly mediocre, though-to say nothing of rather tiresome by the end. Some (like the `adagio' from Mozart's "Concerto in A-major") are a positive embarrassment. And if you've been thinking that a 45-minue disc is a bit on the mean side these days, then trust me: this one's plenty long enough!

No: if you'd like to hear how train sounds should be handled, check out something like Robert Normandeau's "Tangram"; for more interesting environmental music generally, try Claude Schryer's "Vancouver Soundscape Revisited", (available on several recordings, including "Soundscape Vancouver 1996" and Schryer's own "Autour" disc), or any of the music of Hildegard Westerkamp, or others of the acoustic ecology movement.

If you just like the sound of synthesisers played over soothing jungle or other ambient sounds, you'd be better off buying something out of the Greenpeace catalogue. At least the money would be going to a good cause! If you'd prefer some good Tangerine Dream music, then buy almost any of their other discs-this one is just a way of relieving die-hard fans of their cash!

Be very careful with this one.. You might want to hear it before you run out and buy it. Lots of screeching mokeys on this, not alot of music. It is still kind of interesting in terms of the sounds used in it..but remember, it's called AMBIENT. great for playing quietly in the background but not one to throw in the cd player while driving...This stuff reminds me of something Frank Zappa would have done..Good luck..

Strange, almost incoherent mix of TD's usual layered electronica and ambient nature and animal sounds. There's some of the expected TD sound, and the music isn't bad, but the animal noises are just too much to overcome. Might be good as background music at the zoo. A real disappointment from the usually reliable Edgar and Jerome.

I'm not in the arena where the detractors of TD's more recent works reside in because I really love this group but this is the most bizarre releases I've ever purchased. That said, "Ambient Monkeys" on it's own is not a terrible release, I've heard worse but the circumstances behind it's making are perhaps one of the most clumsy I've ever heard.

Spread out over just 45 and a half minutes, this CD contains 12 noodlings where ambient jungle sounds of the Amazon or some other rainforest sound are recorded as a backdrop with previous recordings laced into the background. But while I enjoy such natural sounding music with the sounds of Mother Nature, but among the seven TD CD's I own as of writing this review, this album is the most poorly produced work TD have ever done. The music is barely audible against the natural jungle sounds that it's nearly impossible to enjoy. I've heard so much better material from others who did similar things. Look at Ah-Kin's sadly out-of-print "Ring of Gold" CD or the Earthtone Collections one, two and three where they brilliantly incorporated the sounds of waterfalls, monkeys, and other sounds of animals and weather and incorporate the music brilliantly into them.

None of that happens on "Ambient Monkeys". This is just a shoddy excuse for someone trying to slim down his/her wallet when it's too big to fit in one's pocket. I really don't like to write an unfavorable review on Tangerine Dream because they are an incredible band but "Ambient Monkeys" is an album that would not cause grief should it be taken out of print.

If you want something from TD, I would strongly suggest "Optical Race" (Wonderful classic), "Quinoa", "Rockoon" (Criminally underrated), "Tyranny of Beauty", and their early recordings. "Ambient Monkeys" is the most tedious and dissapointing purchase I've made in years. End of review.