Looking back at Cyclone

[krismopompas]

my td-time has started with force majeure.......... the older albums are not my kind of music

[tangmaster]

After many many years this is stil my alltime fav. of TD.
When i got this album on my birthday back in april 1978, and listen to it for the first time, it seems i was blowing away by this stunning album. Did i like the singen that much, to be honest no i didn't. But the music was great. The opening of Bent Cold Sidewalk was a direct earshaker. Madrigal Meridian blowed me through my room, and this track is still blasting my ears of my head. This album is stil one of those who gives me a lot of memories of the past.

[har]

I've listened to Cyclone a few times this week

I love Bent Cold Sidewalk, it is all superb, but especially the music from about 4min 30. It really is FOR ME the definitive Tangerine Dream sound that I love the most...........gorgeous. (there are many more such definitive moments on many other albums )

I even don't mind the Rising Runner too much and the Madrigal is class.

The album cover is one of my favourites and I remember it being carried proudly by THE Dreamer during my school days a few years back In fact, that cover is one of the key ingredients in The Dream being absorbed into my lifestream.

Go and stick it on

[TDludo]

Cyclone was maybe the third TD album I listened to (back to the 80's).
I was absolutely surprised by the presence of lyrics, but I found they created an interesting mood. Strangely, "Madrigal Meridian" was my least favorite (I found it too long)...

My point of view has changed since then : I still find "Bent Cold Sidewalk" very good (because it's lyrical, mysterious, epic...) and I think now that "Madrigal Meridian" is a beauty.

The only problem is "Rising Runner missed by endless Sender" : despite this great title, I think that Joliffe's voice is upseting here and that the music is not so good. It's like a "comical song" to me. Fortunately, it only lasts five minutes...

[SequenceC]

Cyclone is a really great album, very underated. Some brilliant melodies.

[bergen-dreamer]

very underated.

Not by me - MM is one of my all time favourite TD tracks

[Chris Monk]

For an album that is supposed to be "hated" by the fans it's amazing how few of the fans actually hate it. It appears that one or two fans have reservations about the use of vocals but the music is generally well received IMO.

[rigel]

When I discovered TD back in 1988 I listened to a lot of their albums in a short space of time. With a fanatical intensity, I studied the back catalogue and enjoyed more or less everything. Cyclone was one of those albums I listened to a little later, having previously read that it wasn't exactly a favourite amongst fans and, as far as I know to this day, the band themselves.

I confess on my first few listens (on headphones!) I actually quite enjoyed Cyclone. The side-long Madrigal Meridian was an absolute joy to me back then, a veritable revelation of varied sounds. Great sequences, drumming and guitar, a wonderful build up and driving energy that really swept me away. In the right mood, I can still listen to this today with pleasure.

Side one? Well again, it's good to listen to, although I think some of the singing is, er, well, you know. I recall listening to an interview conducted in a hotel lobby with Froese and Franke (possibly for InKeys magazine?) from about 1984, where they said that of all their albums, this was the one they were most unsure of. The main reason they gave for their reservations was that the band members at the time of this album "didn't know each other." So presumably this meant they didn't work as well together as they might have done. Of course, I'm aware that Krieger performed drums to good effect on Ages and Force Majeure, and Joliffe is a talented, creative musician in his own right.

But whether or not the chemistry was right, Cyclone has its strong points, as well as its fans and indeed its detractors. It certainly exerts a certain charm!

[24db]

When I discovered TD back in 1988 I listened to a lot of their albums in a short space of time. With a fanatical intensity, I studied the back catalogue and enjoyed more or less everything. Cyclone was one of those albums I listened to a little later, having previously read that it wasn't exactly a favourite amongst fans and, as far as I know to this day, the band themselves.

I confess on my first few listens (on headphones!) I actually quite enjoyed Cyclone. The side-long Madrigal Meridian was an absolute joy to me back then, a veritable revelation of varied sounds. Great sequences, drumming and guitar, a wonderful build up and driving energy that really swept me away. In the right mood, I can still listen to this today with pleasure.

Side one? Well again, it's good to listen to, although I think some of the singing is, er, well, you know. I recall listening to an interview conducted in a hotel lobby with Froese and Franke (possibly for InKeys magazine?) from about 1984, where they said that of all their albums, this was the one they were most unsure of. The main reason they gave for their reservations was that the band members at the time of this album "didn't know each other." So presumably this meant they didn't work as well together as they might have done. Of course, I'm aware that Krieger performed drums to good effect on Ages and Force Majeure, and Joliffe is a talented, creative musician in his own right.

But whether or not the chemistry was right, Cyclone has its strong points, as well as its fans and indeed its detractors. It certainly exerts a certain charm!

DE-"Meanwhile back at the hotel Jeanette asked about Peter Baumann's decision to leave the band and the arrival of Steve Jolliffe and Klaus Krieger for the Cyclone album and subsequent tour."

EF-"The problem simply was that we could not for some reason agree to some decisions Peter Baumann made in 77 and (it) was shortly after the second part of the American tour. He wanted to live in New York and then he wanted to do that; and wanted to do that. He had a certain type of lifestyle which is totally the opposite of our one, which is ok, we did respect that and we were together for about 6 years, and so a lot of things went fine, some others didn't. But when we split it, there was a recording session announced, there was a release date of a record, there was tour planned. So there were not so many choices to go with. So I did know Steve from 66-67-68, sometime around this period and I know he is a very fine musician and a fine character and so I thought let's call him, let's get him into the band. He plays keyboards as well (it) shouldn't be any problem with a good musician you can improvise right away and Chris did know Klaus (Krieger). So we brought them into the band, so ok let's have a rehearsal session for a couple of months. Ok once again the truth. The thing was when we produced Cyclone, I've never said that before, but anyway, we made all the ground tracks which we didn't want to make. We wanted to make a piece of music the same way we did before, you know?. Sit down and improvise, but because we did not know so well each other, we just had basic tracks all the time. We could do what ever we liked (but) we were always running into basic tracks!. Everybody said 'Ok that's tracks, it's like somebody wants to sing on it!' and we said no it's not possible, you're crazy! we never use words. But because of that pressure we had from all angles then one day I remember Steve came into the studio and said 'look, I wrote some lyrics, I don't know if-blah, blah, blah', I said ok try it, but sorry we definitely don't use it, but try it. It was a very delicate situation and he did and he tried and it least was a mixture of being suppressed by time factors and not knowing what to do (or) where to go; and so in the end it turned out to be halfway what we wanted. But the Cyclone record it's still one of those pieces of music where we are still totally unsure about!"

CF-“It was an exception”

EF-“Totally an exception”

CF-"There are a lot of people which only like one album of Tangerine Dream, that's Cyclone”

EF-“That’s correct”

CF-“I mean it's an experiment which was a half failure. But it was an experiment and we had not tried doing experiments and it was maybe such as Paul McCartney maybe would do experiments doing a song without vocals."

(General laughter)

[rigel]

Hi, thanks for that transcription! It brought back memories of listening to that tape, which I still have, somewhere! I remember it was a pretty relaxed, candid interview with a good deal of laughter. It may well have been conducted in the hotel bar, rather than the lobby.

I think it was during the same interview when Edgar and Chris were asked, "When are we going to get the next real TD album?" (meaning studio album). To this question Chris Franke replied, tongue firmly in cheek, with something like this: "Gosh ... back to reality. What do you call soundtracks? What do you call live albums? The biggest load of bull**** TD has ever produced!"

[SequenceC]

I think it was during the same interview when Edgar and Chris were asked, "When are we going to get the next real TD album?" (meaning studio album). To this question Chris Franke replied, tongue firmly in cheek, with something like this: "Gosh ... back to reality. What do you call soundtracks? What do you call live albums? The biggest load of bull**** TD has ever produced!"

[24db]

Hi, thanks for that transcription! It brought back memories of listening to that tape, which I still have, somewhere! I remember it was a pretty relaxed, candid interview with a good deal of laughter. It may well have been conducted in the hotel bar, rather than the lobby.

I think it was during the same interview when Edgar and Chris were asked, "When are we going to get the next real TD album?" (meaning studio album). To this question Chris Franke replied, tongue firmly in cheek, with something like this: "Gosh ... back to reality. What do you call soundtracks? What do you call live albums? The biggest load of bull**** TD has ever produced!"

INKEY$ 10 INTERVIEW.

J-"Let's bring us right up to 1984, you've had Firestarter, Wavelength and now Live in Poland on the new Jive Electro label. How did the tour go in Poland for starters?"

EF-"Poland, a very strange experience. We were invited by the ‘official authorities’ strangely enough, anyway they did. Maybe because we did a couple of tours in East Germany before, and so we were approved not to be the wrong act in the right country, or put it the other way round. So we thought maybe we would have a lot of trouble by getting shadowed, getting a lot of people behind us and getting watched and so, nothing like it. They were very friendly and there is not one point where I can or could complain about one single point and the only trouble we had and that's not the fault of the Polish people, not the fault of the country or circumstances which are lying in international political situations in general, only the weather was so bad in terms of temperature that a few concerts we thought we have to break everything down. But then we could do it with 2 or 3 breaks in between, where the power went off and things like that."

J-"So you had trouble with the weather affecting the equipment."

EF-"The weather factor was the worse one."

CF-"Really it was at the stage when you would even cancel an open-air concert” (laughs)

EF-“Yeah, right”

CF-“But the crew at this time was just fantastic, and nobody had any sleep and everybody was ill and still everybody was pulling at the same rope, just to make it happen. Because we didn't do it for the money, we didn't do it for any other reason than just to bring the music over and this was maybe the last chance for quite a while. We really tried very hard otherwise these concerts could never happen."

J-"Now, Tangerine Dream have been very busy with film music over the past few years. There is another film, an American film I believe called Flashpoint?."

EF-"Just released."

J-"Are we going to get that music on vinyl over here, any chance?"

EF-"It's released on the 28th, so what is it? We’ve got the 3rd today, it was released 4 or 5 days ago, I just heard it yesterday from the States, so that will be over here as an import within the next few days."

J-"On which label?"

EF-"On EMI and there is another film which we did the music for called Heartbreakers which is released one week ago and I don't know which record company that is, it's still negotiating but that will be over with 4 or 5 weeks, or 6 weeks or so."

J-"We’ll certainly look forward to those. Hyperborea I think was the last ‘real’ Tangerine Dream album the others have all been soundtracks or live albums. When are we going to get another ‘real’ Tangerine Dream album?"

EF-"Uh huh, back to reality (laughs) how would you call soundtracks, how you would call live records? The worst b-u-lls-hit Tangerine Dream ever have produced! (general laughter). I don't think so, it's true, it's the last studio album we made and it's the last album we did record for Virgin Records. The next one, to depends a bit on what the Poland record could do business wise obviously and what it could do in terms of sales figures and so on because that's part of the record company we are associated with at the moment. But I would say around maybe March/ April."

J-"But you've got some ideas in your heads?, coming yes?"

EF-"Not right now (general laughter) maybe tomorrow (laughs), I don't know, we to be honest don't have any ideas at the present!"

[24db]

Hi, thanks for that transcription! It brought back memories of listening to that tape, which I still have, somewhere! I remember it was a pretty relaxed, candid interview with a good deal of laughter. It may well have been conducted in the hotel bar, rather than the lobby.

I think it was during the same interview when Edgar and Chris were asked, "When are we going to get the next real TD album?" (meaning studio album). To this question Chris Franke replied, tongue firmly in cheek, with something like this: "Gosh ... back to reality. What do you call soundtracks? What do you call live albums? The biggest load of bull**** TD has ever produced!"

At one point it seemed that all EM interviews were done in noisy bars...there's famous one with Schulze where half way through the interview he orders some drinks

[homeless]

Andy, do you have the 'Cyclone' tour interviews circa 1978
when EF referred to that work as a "'step within a step" before the change of heart.

[24db]

Andy, do you have the 'Cyclone' tour interviews circa 1978
when EF referred to that work as a "'step within a step" before the change of heart.

Yes...you are referring to an Interview titled 'In Praise of Disco, can Tangerine Dream beat Donna Summer and the Spanish Electricity Board' by Dave Fudger in Sounds on April 18th 1978 (on page 26)