Customer Reviews

Melrose

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although many TD fans seem to be divided into two camps, pre-'83 and post-'83, I confessedly like pretty well all of it. There are times when a good book and an album like "Zeit" go together, or there times when a long highway drive finds "Melrose" and some of it's likenesses more appealing. Favorite tracks "Dolls in the Shadow", "Art of Vision", and "Rolling Down Cahuenga" are good driving music, that you can still converse to with a passenger. This CD being the culmination of what TD's website calls, "The Melrose Years", they are characterized by prominent use of electronic percussion, to drive fairly simple yet memorable melodies along the way. The only thing that prevents me from giving "Melrose" a 5-star rating is the use of the electric guitar. Unlike almost everything else they do, I find the guitar solos a bit too abrasive for my middle-aged tastes. As a final note, if you want soemthing to travel with, "Melrose" is a good companion, along with "Optical race" and "Lily on the Beach".

A wonderful disc to relax to, and at the same time listen carefully to. You can put it on and set the volume for background levels, and you'll be peacefully conveyed to a place where all is calm, tranquil and, in fact, harmonious. At the same time, if your mind demands more stimulation all you have to do is lift your eyes and listen more closely, and you'll be stimulated by top-flight musicians, exploring new worlds of emotional expressiveness.

This is a wonderful album, no doubt about it. If you'd like music that soothes you at the same time as stimulating you, this is right up your alley. Energetic, dynamic and yet mellow -- no easy feat -- by three of the best in the business. This is an excellent album and a fine purchase. I'm still playing it, and enjoying it, frequently after nearly fifteen years.

Jerome Froese joins Edgar Froese and Paul Haslinger for another intense foray into the world of electronic music. Up-tempo tracks such as "Melrose", "Yucatan" and "Rolling Down Cahuenga" predominate, fiery, percussive and minor in tone with structures that build and stirring percussive beats that drive ever-forward. The interspersed slower tracks are a nice compliment to all of this, gentle and really very pretty (especially the wistful closing selection, "Cool at Heart"). Saxophonist Hubert Waldner, who also played on the group's previous release, "Lily on the Beach", joins the core trio here as well, wailing away to great effect on the opening track. What I like about Tangerine Dream's work is that it is unapologetically electronic, making full use of synthesizers by playing to their strengths--variety, volume and modernity--rather than trying to use the keyboards to emulate the sound of, say, string orchestras or folk instruments (which they really can't match ...yet...). By taking this approach, Tangerine Dream creates vibrant, new music--richly textured, intelligently structured, and all their own. Try their next release, "Tyger" for some creative departures.

In the fall of 1990, Tangerine Dream released a new studio album, "Melrose", which is proof enough that the band was looking for a new direction. For years, ever since Christopher Franke left the band in 1987, Tangerine Dream was a duo of Paul Haslinger and Edgar Froese. The former felt constrained in Tangerine Dream, and subsequently left the band, and emigrated to America, where he started a musical career of his own. The latter was quickly getting out of ideas, and desparately needed help, as it was. The band thus made an extraordinary move - employing Edgar Froese's son, Jerome, as a full member in 1990. Thus the band was again a trio, however shortly. "Melrose" is the only album composed by this line-up, and truth be told, it's no big loss that that direction was not continued from 1991 onwards. Sad as it is, the band shrunk to the father and son in 1991, and their common output was worse than might be imagind back in 1990. For all these reasons, "Melrose" is a turnaround, a significant album. It is the last one which with a stretch of imagination might be considered as a Tangerine Dream album. Efforts of Edgar and Jerome have nothing to do with Tangerine Dream as a band. The ensemble effectively died in 1991.

What can be said about the album itself? Almost an hour long, it offers a significant improvement over the last several albums, although this does not mean much in general. It's directionless, painfully aimless, and the compositions are much too long, considering the contents. More often than not, it feels as if the band simply went out to lunch, forgetting to turn off the recording equipment and sequencers, as is evident on 'Yucatan', 'Rolling Down Cahuenga', or 'Art of Vision'. Other times, we are back to the times of cheesy tunes known from 1989 - the tracks 'Three Bikes in the Sky', and 'Electric Lion' in particular. Sometimes the knife opens itself in the pocket, and compulsively, we look for the 'skip' button - 'Dolls in the Shadow', 'Rolling Down Cahuenga'. Only the opening and closing tracks offer something that can redeem this sad, missed album. 'Melrose' is dynamic, glued from two separate tunes, one of which features a saxophone. What for? Where is the idea? Apparently they didn't have a cue themselves. What can be said about an album where a track like 'Melrose' offers the most musically? Not much, and the closing track, 'Cool at Heart', although begins promisingly, does never arrive where it seemed to be headed. Such a nice electric piano tune - a goodbye of Tangerine Dream.

The 4 "Melrose Years" albums (Optical Race, Miracle Mile, Lily On The Beach and Melrose) were missing from my collection of TD so at this low price, I decided to add this to the rest. This isn't my favorite era of the band but there are tracks on each of the 4 albums that are worth having. Tangerine Dream evolved over the years from a cutting edge Berlin School electronic rock band with music written as a group to more of a rock fusion period to a dreadful smooth jazz period with Kenny G type saxophone parts to pretty much just Edgar Froese writing all the music and the present band performing it. They still have their moments and their live shows are still worth seeing but I no longer look forward excitedly to their next release as I once did.

I remember liking this one more than Lilly on the Beach. The opener, Melrose, had a thrust, the strings cool, the bass a driving pulse, simple, almost like Too Hot for My Chinchilla, but more mellow. I liked it, but still, it just didn't kill! I just kept hoping that Tangerine Dream, now armed to the teeth with the best equipment in the industry to make interesting electronic music would really make things happen after Optical Race.

What happened instead, were a lot of lush chords being held... (two, three, four)... then held (two, three, four)... then... sigh... held. It seemed to me the compositional style was mere adjacency of some Korg Synthesizers grooving at 80 beats per minute.

To its credit, I have to say that even today in my Ipod, Three Bikes in the Sky-- perhaps the most dramatic piece they've done that decade-- is always loaded up and in my rotation. It is fantastic, a nice work of 12 string guitar and lush pads blossoming to yield some killer dual guitar lines from Edgar Froese. He bends and sustains his notes brilliantly in harmony along two tracks.

We get more guitar ferocity in Yucatan which is smooth, urgent and elegant in movements that, though may not seem very descriptive at first, really grow on you. Even Electric Lion has this effect and it's hard not to melt away in into the pulsing spaces and cascading brilliance delivered by Jerome Froese's guitar lines. His style is more frenetic than his father's, though Jerome a (at that time) budding technical player could be hiding a bit behind a delay effect. Ok, Melrose is a good album, a pretty good one in fact, even if it's sorta coffee shop music.

At times, especially when listening to Rolling Down Cahuenga, and Dolls in the Shadows I feel like I'm listening to the album equivalent of the less clever brother of Optical Race pining away for some kind of relevance.

But then on the other hand, I'm humming along to Art of Vision and it's optimistic whimsical bell phrases, and even bobbing my head while listening to the enjoyable meandering jam-out of Desert Train which I can sometimes imagine the piano line being played by Schroeder in the ABC Television Special "The Berlin School is Out Charlie Brown." There are days that I enjoy it for what it is, and then there are days where I just pop the cd out and instead play Poland.

Okay, all of the comments linked here from Amazon's database are about the original Private Music release. This is, apparently, a re-release of the title on a different music label. Or, is it another Froese mashup of the original material? It has a different title, so I assume it is Jerome Froese's 2009 take on the original 1990 release. Why else give it a different disc title? If anyone landing on this page knows the answer and would be willing to post a reply, I'd appreciate it.

Melrose (1990), is the creation of Edgar Froese, Paul Haslinger, and Jerome Froese. This team has put together a consistently energetic album -- it is one of my favorite Tangerine Dream (TD) albums from this era. Some may call it New Age, but it really does rock and I'd rather not use that New Age nomenclature to describe the sound of this work. From the opening energetic Melrose, to Rolling Down Cahuenga, to the mellow Art of Vision, the TD team has captured the essence of electronic/ambient creation in an instrumental outing with songs ranging from 5 to 10 minutes long. The album could easily be a soundtrack for a spacey movie, and makes for great background music. The sound is definitely a departure from the 70s TD and the 80s TD, but as they recreate themselves with the changing times, so too might their listening base evolve.

After 1989's slightly disappointing "Lily On The Beach", Tangerine Dream came back the following year (as a trio once again with Edgar's son Jerome joining the fold) with a stunning piece of work.

Unlike the robotic and often cartoonish "Lily", "Melrose" delivers warm, passionate and exciting music. Hubert Waldner provides a saxophone for the title track while the guitars on Yucatan and Electric Lion are just simply amazing.

The final track, "Cool At Heart" is a piano lullably that one would not ordinarily identify as a TD song. This song serves as a calm, soul-soothing finale to a great album.

I listen to this c.d. about three times a week, and have since I purchased it 15 years ago. I think this one along with most of their work since 1985's "Hyperborea" is their greatest work. Talk about haunting!And the piece entitled 'Electric Lion' is one of their most energy-driven, with an awesome use of electric guitar near the end that ultimately gives it a hard rock sound. While "Melrose" is not their #1 best c.d. it is definately in the Top 5 in my book. I highly recommend this c.d.if you enjoy haunting electronica with a hard rock overtones.