Customer Reviews

Cyclone

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In late 1977 Edgar Froese, the founding father of Tangerine Dream was very busy, indeed. At the time he recorded yet another of his solo album, and looked hard for replacement of the irreplaceable, namely Peter Baumann. Since the motto of Tangerine Dream in the 70s was - experiment, innovation and spontaneity, he decided to employ two new members of the band, momentarily diverting from the unspoken rule that Tangerine Dream was, is, and shall remain a trio. Perhaps there is nothing extraordinary in the mere fact of expanding the band, but considering its history, the changes were indeed revolutionary. Why? The new members were: Klaus Krieger, a drummer, who played a standard jazz hand-made percussion, and Steve Joliffe, a vocalist and multiinstrumentalist, who used a new generation of Fairlight synthesizers, and played analog instruments like bass and tenor horns, bass and alto flutes, piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet, and grand piano.

Although yet again Tangerine Dream had a member playing flute, the sound of Tangerine Dream Anno Domini 1978 did not resemble their previous recordings. The compositions on "Cyclone", which was recorded in early 1978, are more aggressive than ever, more rock-oriented, while still complex and touching. The album was a shock for the electronic community. Ever since the audience has been divided - for "Cyclone" is a very controversial album. The attitude has been: love it, or hate it. Most of the audience objected the introduction of vocals, and even the essence of the Joliffe lyrics was objectionable to most. Still, the album is very coherent - it might be even christened a concept album, the expression we usually associate with Pink Floyd. Perhaps it's not a coincidence, for the first two tracks slightly resemble the older songs by that famous British group. The resemblance is slight, for the vocals are unique, while the overall impression is that of originality.

The album withstood the flow of time, and is still considered among the very best that the band ever conceived. This is also due to the multiinstrumental fugue of 'Madrigal Meridian', the last and the longest, purely instrumental composition on the album. There, the excellence of the musicians shows and we cannot help but admire the perfection with which the track was recorded and performed. Just like in the old times of "Stratosfear", the composition is multithreaded, albeit much more dynamic - it features melodies, ostinata, solos of various instruments interlaced together in the fugue. This is the work of genius, indeed.

Usually it's the case that the artists try to develop their own, unique sound. This certainly applies to Tangerine Dream, but how many artists, how many bands can boast of so many innovative, unique compositions that have little in common? In the 70s, Tangerine Dream produced many albums, each of which could be considered as the discovery of new lands, of new ways to express the mind. Each one could be very well followed by a few epigone albums, just as is so often the case with other artists. Tangerine Dream were not the slaves of their own work, of their own success - not in the 70s. Within such a short time, they invented, expanded, and created the whole universe of music, the whole genre. No one before or after was able to match their originality, even the band itself in later years. "Cyclone" is one of the unforgettable masterpieces, whether you like the vocals or not. Personally, I love them.

1978's Cyclone is often maligned by many Tangerine Dream fans. The reason for that were the inclusion of vocals. At this point, Peter Baumann was gone, releasing the occasional solo album (like Trans-Harmonic Nights and Repeat Repeat), and eventually in charge of the Private Music label (in which TD recorded for during the late '80s/early '90s). Two new members came in. Klaus Krieger on drums, and Steve Jolliffe on wind instruments and vocals. Jolliffe was once a member of the old British blues-rock band Steamhammer, and apparently a member of TD in 1968, before they ever got to record. Here the band decided to go for a more prog rock album, thanks to the inclusion of vocals. "Bent Cold Sidewalk" shows that. The vocals are pretty peculiar, and that's what throws many off. The middle part of this piece is more typical Tangerine Dream, dominated by Franke's sequenced synthesizer. "Rising Runner Missed by Endless Sender" isn't as bad as some say it is. It has this pulsing rhythm, with string synths, and again vocals. The side-length "Madrigal Meridian" is what saves this album, even to detractors. No vocals here, it's basically an electronic piece as you expect TD to do. A lot better than some say it is. If you like their music and don't mind vocals, get this album.

I bought this Tangerine Dream album on vinyl less than a week ago and it simply blew my mind. From the first chords of "Bent Cold Sidewalk", I was simply hypnotized by the beautiful blend of analog synths, sequencers, drums and acoustic instruments. I was completely unfamiliar with the work of this seminal german band, but became an instant fan.

What is perhaps most impressive about this album is the manner it segues and mutates. Every track is a gem unto itself, a trip into spacy territory that reminds me of the Ozric Tentacles and such, but with a distinctly german edge. The moody synths, drums and acoustic instruments create a near-psychedelic yet crisp soundscape that wraps you in tendrils of electronic sound that you will not soon forget.

Maybe this album's trippy sound is not for everyone, but if you have patience, an open mind and open ears, this album will prove itself to be an experience that will not leave your stereo (or your brain) for days.

The previous reviews only go to show the difference in musical taste people have. I myself as a fan of music from minimalism/soul/jazz/folk/pop (and also a pianist/synthesist) find this to be the most satisfying TD CD for a number of reasons.

My first concern with TD was that they weren't fantastically equipped musicians with great soloing chops. Most of their work previous (and some may argue since!) revolved around very simple pentatonic lines (that even a five year old on a Bontempi could do!) that were frequently played very loosely but then that was part of the character I suppose, and I loved what they were doing anyway as it gave me the courage to follow my own convictions.

With this recording that changed, Steve Joliffes folk/jazz woodwind contribution is remarkable.. his lines evoke wonderful pictures of forests and old english imagery. To me it is essentially a Steve Joliffe recording he is the star of this CD and thats probably why most TD fans don't like it. TD fans can be a fickle bunch, completely obsessed with the band and their recordings frequently not seeing the wider musical picture and other artists and other musical genres. That was certainly me during the 80s and I see the same thing in TD fans now. Mores the pity really as there is a lot of good music out there if they could only see past TD.

Anyway back to the tracks(!), the first track opens with some vocoder and some progressive rock style vocals. I think possibly they had been listening to a lot of Jon Anderson and Yes by this stage! Theres some lovely Mellotron brass lines and Solina String Ensemble work which gives into some wonderful sequencer passages and lively chiffy flute work, oboe, soprano sax etc.. all by Mr Jolliffe.. absolutely killer stuff.. and his vocal shouts are just magnificent.. I love it.. really expressive and just going for it and putting his whole heart into it like a true jazzer should.

The 2nd track is a really aggressive almost punky track with some wonderful chugging sequencing work, dodgy vocals and wonderful synth FX thru echo and the obligatory Solina String Ensemble! Still great.. would probably have made a good single!

The final track is a real masterpiece, more Mellotron brass and sequencing which the drummer finds hard to keep in sync with but sounds fine anyhow. Great fast sequencer passages over Lyricon lines make for some wonderful and magical moments... this then gives into one of Edgars best guitar solos on record and this then goes into more Steve Joliffe woodwind.. which is just bleedin epic... theres a passge where the drums fade out and the overdubbed woodwinds and synths are all that is left.. absolutely beautiful work...

Really fantatsic stuff.. I've never heard any band do stuff like this before or since, it really is a unique recording.

So there you have it, my fav TD CD of all time.. like it or loathe it, its got some really unique moments that I think anyone with a wide appreciation of music (people who listen to a broad range of music not just Electronic material) would enjoy.

And then this band went onto make Rockoon..... oh dear! ;-)

Given the year this album was released (1978), it is really no surprise that Tangerine Dream wanted to move beyond the cosmic, "drifting through space" of their previous works and try their hand at musical styles including New Wave. Unfortunately, this experimentation came at some cost and not unlike the major English prog bands of the time that tried the same thing, failed. Oddly though, Tangerine Dream was also moving in a symphonic direction that had the faintest aroma of prog to it - for example, on Cyclone a rock drummer is featured and (gasp!) a singer.

The singer (Steve Joliffe) employed a style that would have been more appropriate on the Sex Pistols album or a Circle Jerks album than as accompaniment to the symphonic soundscapes of Tangerine Dream. That means he is more often than not out of key (sometimes horribly so) and has a ragged texture to his voice. It really is unfortunate because the three pieces on this album are not all that bad (the first two tracks feature vocals) and the epic (20'28") instrumental Madrigal Meridian stands among Tangerine Dreams finer pieces written during the late 1970s. I think that stylistically, the 5'00" Rising Runner Missed by Endless Sender features the most New Wave-ish tendencies with its pulsating electronic beat and Steve's vocals. This is also the weakest track on the album in my opinion. Although this may paint a pretty bleak picture, all is not lost. There are some nice moments on both Bent Cold Sidewalk (13'05") and Madrigal Meridian, and there are loads of moody sounding analog synthesizers that should please most fans.

I will admit that when I first listened to this album, I disliked it "intensely" and after a single listening, put it back on the shelf in between Encore (Tangerine Dream Live) (1977) and Force Majeure (1979). However, after repeated listening, I found that the album is not all that bad, although it is certainly far below the high standard of most of their albums.

Although it pains me to say this, I can't really recommend Cyclone very highly, although hardcore Tangerine Dream fans (like me) will want to have this album. For those of you that are new to the band, check out Phaedra (1974); Rubycon (1975); and Tangram (1980) before coming here.

I am somewhat bewildered at the negative reaction among some circles of TD's fans towards this bold, daring and breathtaking album. The main complaint seems to be directed towards Steve Jolliffe's vocals. One has to remember that for its first twenty years TD was a band whose raison d'etre was experimentation, to push the boundaries of rock music, to challenge the listener.

Cyclone represents TD at their most confidently pyrotechnic, blending abstract sounds with pounding rhythms and hard-edged melody to produce three rollercoaster tracks. Jolliffe's vocals can be viewed as simply another "instrument" within the music. What Johnny Rotten and co were doing for pop music, TD were doing for rock. Yet behind the "anarchy" there is a cold, baroque beauty and structure to the pieces - particularly in the sublime "Madrigal Meridian". Indeed instruments such as flute, violin, cello and harpsichord are used highly effectively to illustrate this. And the actual compositional skills of band are stronger than ever.

It should be said, however, that for listeners more used to the "safe", "commercially aware" material TD have been recycling ad nauseum since 1992, Cyclone will come as something of a shock. As such I would recommend the uninitiated listed to 1978's Force Majeure first, which essentially adopted the style and tone of Cyclone but added warmth and dispensed with vocals.

Overall Cyclone represents the peak of TD's brilliance in fusing the genres of rock, classical and experimentalism. Dig a little deeper than the criticisms of the "surface" and the rewards are easy to find and plentiful!

By the time of this 1978 release, TD was Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke, with a music industry that was poised for some tremendous change in the next several years.

In an attempt to deliver a new artistry to an already hefty catalog, Steve Jolliffe (vocals, flute) and Klaus Krieger (drums) were enlisted for the nearly 38 minutes of this "controversial" album. It was the first attempt to add vocals to the soundscape, with Jolliffe on Bent Cold Sidewalk and Rising Runner Missed By Endless Sender, with a traditional TD delivery on the elegant Madrigal Meridian.

A vastly underrated album, though it was a direction TD would only flirt with in the coming years, it showed a growth in vision and an attempt to nudge fans into a new age of music.

Back in 1978 Tangerine Dream was at the height of their career. Their beginning 4 albums; Electronic Meditation (1970), Alpha Centauri (1971), Zeit (1972) and Atem (1973) might had been loved by a selected group of unwavering souls of their emerging followers, but placed aside by the majority of overwhelmed listeners. Phoedra (1974), Rubycon (1975), Ricochet (1975), Stratosfear (1976) and Encore (1977) were all much more accessible and more widely appreciated and heavily reinforced by TD's first soundtrack Sorcerer (1977) they were exposing the band to a much wider public. The golden line-up of TD consisting of Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann which lasted 7 years and 9 albums ended prior to the creation of Cyclone. Peter Baumann had left the group to focus on his solo recordings and Steve Jolliffe, an Englishman, had replaced him. My feeling is that Edgar's and Christopher's choice had a lot to do with wanting to experiment with English lyrics and with the meaning behind the lyrics, so paramount to the substance of great progressive rock. Cyclone had become their progressive rock album and it ended up disappointing many followers of Tangerine Dream. I ended up falling in love with the mysterious lyrics of Bent Cold Sidewalk. At first (at fifteen)I was even more enamored by the energy and sound of Rising Runner Missed By Endless Sender with its straightforward lyrics, but I have to say that today I feel differently about this song. When you listen to the following instrumental song Madrigal Meridian, you can hear how much beauty was covered or blurred by the human voice of the preceding two songs. Very likely that realization became obvious to our artists and that was why we seldom heard lyrics again. However, so many of us did not have to wonder anymore of how Tangerine Dream would sound with vocals. Although Alpha Centauri did bring some of them, we could not quite speak of songs. Besides the lyrics Steve Jolliffe added to the sound of Tangerine Dream in terms of increased wind instrument sections. The instrumental part of Bent Cold Sidewalk as well as Madrigal Meridian has some beautiful flute, horns, and clarinet and piccolo sections within them. Madrigal Meridian is a five star song in my book. There is a lot going on here, that's for sure. Pretty consistent up-beat, and the melodic spiral-like motif introduced in the 9th minute on a synthesizer is being picked up by the guitar in the 11th minute. For some listeners of TD Edgar's distorted guitar sound might have damaged the piece but the violin take on that Prokofiev inspired movement in the 13th minute sounds very warm and it continues and transitions the piece in the 17th minute into a slower atmospheric section. In the 19th minute the sound of Steve Jolliffe's flute brings on an cello and violin solo epilogue. However, the most interesting layer of Madrigal Meridian for me is its dramatic experimental sombient atmosphere of 3rd minute and than the phenomenal 8th minute, drum and organ induced. The sound Christopher Franke created the 8th minute sounds similar to the one Richard Barbieri ends Porcupine Tree's phenomenal Fear Of The Blank Planet album 30 years later (I am sorry, that had nothing to do with Tangerine Dream). Again, I can understand that this is hardly anybody's favorite album by Tangerine Dream but it is hard for me to understand why you would not take it for what it is and listen with pleasure to, once a while. Perhaps when you feel like solving a riddle?

Bent Cold Sidewalk is a riddle I only partially understand. Nature is full of Spirit which the cities are lacking. I lose my touch with the Spirit when I stay there. Our civilization brings no answers. We live our human lives focusing on trivia nonsense blurring our vision to push us forward. We wish to stay physically young and we relive memories of our youth in sadness, rather than reaching for our real spiritual destiny. Each incarnation is a key; death destroys the mind but death is not the only entry into the universe of cosmic sound (the universe is full of cosmic sound where all thoughts originate). If you can strengthen your meditative channel you may become exposed to the Mystery of Creation, come back here safely and use your mind to analyze the situation. However, do not open these doors if you are not strong enough to withstand the dangers hidden outside the consciousness. `Wasted tears that try to fight in vein'. What an amazing concept. Tears fight, well, if they do they must be fighting for the soul to be acknowledged. I think that understanding is correct because it is confirmed later on in `I die to fight!!. I die to fight!!, I die to fight!!'. Yes, when we die only the soul is left of us, so it does come to expression then. I think that `bent cold sidewalk' stands for our physical body, but I am not sure. I don't understand the crown and the table with dusty plates metaphor. Let me know if you do. And does `this door' stand for our present human incarnation in and around the 20th Century? That would explain why it is so heavy and deeply stained (especially if you happen to live in post war Germany). Heavy substance and delivered to us by an Englishman in a Gothic envelope which could almost be taken for a German accent. Absolutely one of a kind. The same goes for this entire album. However, if you are new to Tangerine Dream and not sure where to start, perhaps you should not start here, unless you love progressive rock genre. Otherwise, please read my review of Stratosfear.

If this were actually some long lost Pink Floyd album, I would accept it better for what it is. Having this album be a Tangerine Dream album released between "Encore" and "Force Majeure", I find it a little disappointing. However, I do accept this album more now than I did when I first heard it, but I still struggle with accepting the vocal parts of this album. But, I do appreciate the second side with the track called "Madrigal Meridian". Actually the first three minutes of this track makes for a classic moment for the Tangerine Dream saga. After that, the track just seems to go on forever without much change to the rhythm. And yet, I still think it is this album's strongest track. This album definitely sounds like something Pink Floyd would do after their album "Animals". And then I would say that it is not as bad as Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut", but anyway...

To me, Tangerine Dreams's Virgin years are the best years for Tangerine Dream. Although, I feel that their earlier albums "Alpha Centauri" and "Green Desert" offers some very good classic Tangerine Dream music as they were just starting to create the Progressive/Electronic/Ambient sound that is still cherished by fans to this day. I'll bet that all their Virgin albums sell much better than all their other 90+ non-Virgin releases do sell to this day. I'm not saying that they are bad, they are just not as innovative as their Virgin years.

This has got to be one of Tangerine Dreams best. I've been listening to them since 1978 so I've heard a lot of thier music. Some T-D fans badmouthed this album because it contained vocals on the three tracks. But this only adds to the mood of the music. The songs are fast paced with rolling electronic beats that capture the listener and take them on a synthesized journey into the far reaches of the music spectrum. These musical compilations are sophisticated and any listener with an open mind to something different can get lost in the electronic structure time and time again. Cyclone is music that is a bit edgier than average T-D albums so it makes for a good intro to thier music. I've found new listeners have a easier time listening to this album than other Tangerine Dream recordings. However you want to look at it, Tangerine Dream is the best. Thier music leaves Pink Floyd in the dust. Put this one on your stereo, sit back, and go for a trip into the far reaches of space. Enjoy!