Mota Atma [Import]

Tangerine Dream | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 29, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Tangerine Dream Intl
• ASIN: B00008VAJW
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,903 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Courage To Lose

2. For The Summit Only

3. No Pleasure No Pain

4. Royal Way Of Privacy

5. Phoenix Burning

6. Prophet In Chains

7. Snow On Angels Feather

8. A Fair Days Wage

9. Brain Offender

10. A Day In Liberty Valley

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The career of pioneering electronic soundscape architects Tangerine Dream has stretched so long that the child of founder/mainstay Edgar Froese, who occasionally graced the band's covers as an adolescent, is now Froese's full-fledged band mate. And if their commercial success and string of Hollywood films they scored in the '70s and '80s seem to have ironically cost them some critical perspective, this soundtrack (recorded in the fall of ‘02) to the obscure Spark-Guchy production is a compelling summation of the band's various phases and enduring appeal. The brooding, sensuous textures of their expansive mid-'70s prime are often efficiently set here to the pulsing sequencer rhythms that propelled much of their film work from Sorcerer onwards, but deftly seasoned with samples and sparing uses of natural instruments that give it a deceptively transparent sense of the organic. Young Jerome Froese seems locked into his father's electro muse at the genetic level, producing one of T-Dream's most sonically elegant and rewarding modern albums. --Jerry McCulley

Product Description

Mota Atma is an original motion picture soundtrack and the band's stunning 2003 album recorded towards the end of 2002 at their studio in Berlin. TDP.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, May 13, 2003

By 

J. Rolfe "The Wandering Gourd" (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mota Atma (Audio CD)

Tangerine Dream fans are a demanding, proprietary lot made up of various factions who get their knickers in a twist whenever Edgar Froese goes off on yet another stylistic tangent. There are Tangerine heads who are fixing to boil Froese in oil for the heresy of using lyrics and vocalists (not the first time) on last year's Inferno. There are those who despaired when Tang D produced a long string of fairly conventional records in the '90s replete with guitars, sax, flute, dance beats and trance stylings. There are those who long for the band's spacey halcyon daze of the mid-70s to mid-80s. And finally, there are those who feel Edgar & Co. have done nothing but insult the senses and take money under false pretenses since 1973's dense, dark avant garde gem Atem. So which camp comes away happy with Mota Atma? Well, I've loved TD for 30 years and this one may be their most consistently trippy outing since Phaedra and Rubycon in the mid-70s. No pretty melodies or conventional song structures here, only those patented Phaedra-like bubbling rhythms percolating with sinister mystery under an array of sweeping synth washes and synapse-frying electronic effects. At times, the synth tones evoke the big, frizzy metallic buzz of TD's Johannes Schmoeling era in the early 80's. The percussion work is simple and much closer in feel to when Chris Franke was a major player in the 70s and 80s. Yet there is a clean up-to-date feel. My only niggle is the sameness of these 10 tracks, which are 99 percent atmosphere, albeit very effective atmosphere. It's almost as if Froese and son Jerome are toying with variations on a stylistic theme, but they draw the listener in nonetheless and carry you along for a pretty nice ride. Unless of course, you demand sax and guitar and melody with your Tangerines. In that case, you'll likely be firing up a big pot of pitch in a fit of righteous indignation.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice listen, August 25, 2003

By 

Peter Isaacson "PENFOLD" (Whittier, CA USA - Terra - Sol System) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mota Atma (Audio CD)

First a disclaimer:
I'm a TD fan. Been one since '81

I like this CD. It's not too slow and not too fast, but it's great music to chill to, or to read to.

My newborn son likes this, as well as my wife.

Compared to the previous releases from the last few years, the overall musical quality of the selections tonality and soundforms on this release makes this 'Great' instead of just 'Good'

This CD would be one I would add to my list to reccomend to those as an introduction to their music.

Tangerine Dream's been around since 1967, with Edgar Froese at the helm; one of the first groups to adopt Synthesizers almost 40 years ago and able to make it a major player (pardon the unintended pun) in musical compositions. Edgar also plays a real mean electric guitar.

If you want to hear a group that knows it's way around Synths, TD is at the top 'o the list!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine new soundtrack work from Tangerine Dream, September 4, 2003

By 

Jeffery K. Matheus (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mota Atma (Audio CD)

Following closely after the release of Tangerine Dream's live classical/operatic work, "Inferno", this new soundtrack recording was taken from the an obscure 2003 Japanese film titled "Mota Atma" (a quick check on the internet revealed not even ONE bit info on this film,...other than the fact that the soundtrack is by Tangerine Dream!) and it represents quite a change in sound and compositional style from "Inferno". While the music on "Inferno" is heavily structured and tightly arranged, much of the music here is more akin to the free-flowing space rock of early-70 works such as "Phaedra" or "Rubucon", albeit performed with more modern "digital" synth & percussion sounds. As other reviewers have duly noted, a few of the tracks here are mearly variations on a theme, or perhaps alternate versions of the same basic compositions. However, at well over 75 minutes of music, there is certainly enough top-notch new music here to justify adding it to your TD collection. For me, the standout tracks include "Royal Way of Privacy" (majectic & orchestral, with a beautiful chord progression), "Prophet in Chains" (a dark, intense, pulsating piece; with an overall sound reminicent of 1999's outstanding "Mars Polaris" soundtrack) and "For the Summit Only", a spacy, fluid, free-form jam that may even please some of those unfortunate "TD purists" who dismiss the band's more structured or "rock"-oriented latter day works (which I, just for the record, happen to love!) While "Mota Atma" and other such soundtrack recordings may not be as completely satisfying of a listen as Tangerine Dream's main studio albums, they still contain some gripping, evocative music that should not be missed by the die-hard T-Dream fan. (Just as an aside, I have often felt, with a few notable exceptions, that maybe TD saves their more complex & fully-realised material for their main studio & live album releases, while the sountrack albums represent the band's more ambient "minimalistic" side. The soundtrack works, after all, are meant simply as accompanyment to another artist's visual work.) All in all, dispite the grumbling of the naysayers, the current TD line-up of Edgar & Jerome Froese continue to create music that touches my soul and pleases my ears...the Dream lives on!