Then Donofrio_TD, maybe it is time you stopped buying and listening to any remaining TD releases that there may be because you have obviously no more interest in seeing the Quantum phase through without Edgar. That is fine, if that is how you feel, but I do not see the point of you coming on here and moaning about everything that Thorsten, Ulrich & Hoshiko now do when you have clearly given up on it. Just leave those, like me, who are still interested alone to enjoy what is to come. I hope I don't end up hearing that you have bought a ticket to see them live later in 2016!!

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Biggus Dickus

No, I'm not saying it's a "soundalike". What I *am* saying is that I can hear certain elements that suggest a recapturing of the exhilarating "vitality" of those early years. And "Electron Bonfire" possesses a wonderfully "progressive" style to it: the track continually morphing its style. (My only criticism is that, at five minutes, it's too short - hopefully the Quantum Gate version will be longer.)



There's no question that he was the founder. But on the point that "he was the only one that stuck around", you have to ask yourself *why*. Why did so many people leave? (Particularly the continual, rapid "churn" since 1995.) It's been speculated that there were a number of major disagreements and fall-outs over the years (that certainly appears to be the case with Jerome.) To be a "leader" you have to have people who are prepared to "follow" you and I'm not sure Edgar had a great track-record on that score...

You could rightfully argue that all the folks who abandoned him over the years did so because they had their own "solo" ideas that they wanted to pursue which meant they could no longer fully commit to TD. But one thing that has struck me over the years is that none of the "big names" (Chris, Johannes, Paul, Jerome) ever returned and don't appear to have any "happy reminiscences" of their time in TD. (Of course I might be wrong on this - I've certainly not read all the interviews they have done over the years). What was intriguing was that Peter came back *after* Edgar died. I know he bailed out again but it's encouraging to think that there is a possibility of other key players in TD's history would consider returning.

I am glad that you agree that the band went into a "great depression" - but I am optmistic that Thorsten can help to get TD's "mojo" back again! If he can look and truly understand what made TD so great in the 70s and 80s - and commercially successful, let's not forget, rather than the "niche fandom" it has now - and apply that attitude to music not just suitable for today but also point the way ahead, the whole genre of electronic rock could be revitalised.




I think the tiredness was reflected in the dwindling creativity. Other than live albums containing renditions of old favourites, I've heard little more than bland, stale, predictable, repetitive "grey porridge" from TD ever since "Goblin's Club" (at the least the "Dream Mixes" stuff tends to inject some verve to the pieces)...




You seem to be advocating burying TD alongside Edgar. I can't believe he would have wanted it that way. You complained about Thorsten's influence on Quantum Key but perhaps that was Edgar's intention - he had started to "pass the baton". If so, I think that was the right thing to do.

It's difficult to accept that Edgar has gone. Despite my critical view on the band's output over the last two decades, I still think he was one of the best guitar - acoustic and electric - players in the world. But the pioneer that Edgar was had left decades ago.

_________________
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Cheers


Dave

LOL. Why not? Did you really want to make me laugh or what? I can if I want to, just to poke fun at the new geeky TD wannabes (OK, that's cruel, they're actually not so bad, but they're still in diapers to carry the name Tangerine Dream with themselves, and nothing you or the other guy say is going to change that). By the way, I'm not the one who's given up. It looks to me that it's Thorsten, Ulrich and Hoshiko who're giving up when they haven't even begun. Are they really bringing something new to the table? Not at all. It's all the same old boring sounds, the same old poppy rhythms and the same old emptiness. Thorsten had so much better things to offer on any of the Sonic Poem series (yeah, even on The Castle) and on the first Attomic Seasons release than on Quantum Key. It's like they want to carry on with Edgar's legacy but only from the last couple of years, when he was clearly not in the best condition to even judge his own work. Who knows? Maybe they'll end up blasting my brain and blowing me away with their next releases, but unfortunately I don't think so. I'm sorry I'm not as optimistic as you and Dave are, but it's way too difficult that these guys are going to offer anything remotely new or awesome in the future. I'd even say it's almost impossible. I hope they'll seriously shut me up if I'm wrong one day, but from now on anything they release under the TD trademark is going to be just a vehicle for them to get close to any sort of credibility as musicians..., and of course I'll be there to criticize it.

Oh, and for the record, I never bought a ticket to see TD live when Edgar was around (they never came to my country and I was never able to travel to wherever they were going to make a gig, so I never had the fortune to see TD live, I'm sorry to say!!!), so why in the world would I buy a ticket to go see these guys? That was the best thing in your post. Good one.

Dave, nothing you say has the least shred of truth. It all reduces itself to one simple thing: Edgar did believe in evolution, and so he did evolve. A pioneer doesn't stop being a pioneer or doesn't "leave" anything just because 3% of his work weakens from time to time with the natural course of life. And yeah, maybe he wanted to turn things over to Thorsten, who knows? Maybe only he knew. I can't know that and neither can you. We can just assume that. But still, Thorsten and co. are not doing anything to evolve. They're trapped on an unending journey that promises nothing but hollow dreams and empty feelings. Maybe it's too soon to judge that with, you know, this being a "tribute" to Edgar and all, but what I see from now on is a not-so-hard attempt to go back to the past but without the knowledge of what made that past so great. Everything is just so predictable. Looks like they're not even trying anymore. You're right about something, though: Electron Bonfire is quite good. Like I said before, it's the track that sounds the most like TD on this release, but I can hardly see any progression on it, let alone any evolution. You'd think that without Edgar everything would be more alive and imaginative, especially with these guys being so young and all, but everything just sounds like an extended version of Edgar's score to the GTA V game.

And seriously, since Goblins Club? And you only recognize The Dream Mixes as worthy of your listening experience? I guess it all comes down to individual tastes, but first of all, GC was a very good release, and even if TD was not in its hayday there, that record still managed to create a lot of classic TD sounds for the late 90's era and for quite some time it became an emblematic work. And how about The Sonic Poem series or The Attomic Seasons releases (both included Thorsten to a certain degree), or The Dante Trilogy, or the classical Jerome Froese contributions like Mars Polaris and Great Wall Of China, or even the little cupdiscs like Macchu Picchu and Mona Da Vinci? That makes me think that maybe all Thorsten and co. want to do is to give people who think like you a "blast from the past" but without knowing how to truly accomplish that.

Really? Let's examine that...



So firstly you say there's not a shred of truth in it but then admit that's it's a possibility.

I said that Edgar was TD's founder. But you are saying there is no shred of truth in that assertion. It's a matter of record that he was.

I suggested that some ex-members of the band left because they wanted to pursue solo careers. I seem to recall Peter left in 1975 as he was working on a solo album and then released a few more. Chris Franke not only issued his first solo album within a year of leaving TD, he went on to produce several more and enjoyed a successful solo career. Johannes and Paul Haslinger were similar. But you curiously deny all these palpable facts.

It was widely reported that Peter briefly return to TD after Edgar's passing. But you have implied that this did not happen. I'm intrigued to know what you think led to so many of us being misled into believing Peter had come back.

By implication you assert that the band was not commercially successful in the 1970s and 80s. I find that surprising given tha documented fact that some of their albums got into the UK Top 40 and had airplay by high-profile broadcasters such as the BBC.




Ah, that's a good point - I perhaps wasn't clear in what I meant by that. They may remain regarded as a pioneer from a historical perspective - but they don't always continue pioneering. For example they simply retire. Now in my view Edgar (and the rest of the band, of course) pioneered electronic rock from the stark experimentalism of 1969's "Electronic Meditatation", through the takeup of analogue synths in the mid-1970s, digital synths in the 1980s and right up to the use of the then-new Cubase software of 1988's "Optical Race". After that point, while I think they still produced some great albums, I don't hear anything was pioneering as such.



Well we don't know that yet - the very definition of "evolution" is advancement/progress over a period of time. Thorsten's TD (assuming he wishes to continue) is only at the start of a potential evolutionary journey.



And, unsurprisingly, that's been my view of TD since "Goblin's Club".




Ah, so now you're saying there IS a shred of truth in what I said.



Well, as I said, the meagre five minutes allotted to it doesn't help.



Yes, I do mean that very seriously. All the studio albums of new material issued from that point onwards I have listened to several times over the years just trying to find something good and/or inspiring about them... but it's taken twenty years and the passing of Edgar for something to reignite the spark.

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Cheers


Dave

Well, as I said before, we can't know if Edgar wanted to hand his leadership to Thorsten Quaeschning. We can just assume that, and, unfortunately, assuming just makes an ass out of you and ME. Assumptions don't make truths. They're just neutral thoughts that ultimately only end up being futile.

Anyway, the "shred of truth" thing I was referring to was the fact that you just lost all credibility when you mentioned that, for the last 20 years or so, TD has been nothing but an uncreative and an uninspiring experience. Well, to me it has been inspiring and creative and I'm sure to many other people it has been the same thing. It's kind of preposterous to think that, just because you hear some sounds like Phaedra and Ricochet on the first track of this EP, that the spark is being "ignited again after so many years". Don't be fooled, these guys are lost and stuck. Like I mentioned before, I guess it all just comes down to taste and your experiences with life and the way you combine all this with how the actual music works with your state of mind at the time, but it looks to me that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It looks like you're one of those "nostalgic" people who are so hopeful to go back to the past when it's clear that it's never going to happen.

And what's with this obsession about pioneering? Just because someone gets to be a pioneer doesn't mean that he HAS TO pioneer for the rest of his life. Edgar was still human, you know, not some robotic pioneering machine. Just because something doesn't sound "pioneering" anymore doesn't mean it automatucally becomes uninspiring.

Now, can you please point out where I implied all the things you said I implied? It's kinds hard for me to "imply" anything, since all I try to do all the time is to be as clear as possible. I don't think I ever said anything about the 70's and the 80's not being comercially successful.

Oh, and by the way, the subject on the table was TD as a whole, not some of the members's solo careers, which, if you ask me, were only successful because they had anything to do with TD before. I'm not judging if they were good or bad, but if they hadn't been involved with TD before, people had never turned their attention to them. They didn't know how to be pioneers on their own. We're not talking about another Jean-Michel Jarre or another Vangelis or even another Mike Oldfield. They were all derivations of TD, even Klaus Schulze.

You ask why WE were misled to think Peter was coming back? Well, WE were not. I know I was not. Maybe you were but I was never surprised when he left again. As I mentioned before, you people desperately need to rejoice in the past, and that's why you were misled. Even if Peter had come back, without Edgar Froese this is still not Tangerine Dream.

One last thing: You seem to admire Electron Bonffire a lot because of its "progression". Want to know about real progression? I'm not gonna ask you to listen to Coldwater Canyon or even Rubycon or Tangram or Stratosfear... Listen to "Marakesh" from Optical Race. Now, THAT is real progression. In fact, that album is quite progressive, except for the title track only, but that doesn't change anything.

But what you actually said - indeed your opening, unqualified gambit - was: "Dave, nothing you say has the least shred of truth". That's potentially libellous. You need to be very careful indeed when making such accusations on a public forum.



I made a fairly brief mention of it, so what evidence is there that I am obsessed wth pioneering?




Well that backs up what I said originally - ie Edgar was no longer pioneering.



Because when I suggested that, you replied that nothing I said "has the least shred of truth".



Because when I mentioned that Peter had come back (albeit briefly), you replied that nothing I said "has the least shred of truth".




But there are degrees of progression. You don't have to have a 20-minute piece to achieve that. You *can* do it in five minutes, although it's possibly more noticeable on longer tracks.

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Cheers


Dave

Will you two play nicely, otherwise you'll go to bed without any supper

But this *is* me being nice.... you should hear me roar when I get cross!

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Cheers


Dave

Man, I'm not going to quote every paragraph you write. I think I've cleared things up about what I meant when I wrote that "nothing you say has the least shred of truth". We all know the facts about Peter and blah blah. We don't need YOU to remind us. What I was talking about was merely about your unqualified notion (not to mention your preposterous assumption) that TD hasn't excelled at being creative in the last 20 years. You conveniently ignored all that in your last post. And it seems that you're still obsessed with pioneering. Like I said, not pioneering anymore doesn't mean not being creative anymore. And what if I told you that "pioneering" is also a matter of subjective opinion? Maybe from your POV Edgar stopped pioneering, but certainly not from mine and many others' POV's. For example, the sounds he created in The Dante Trilogy and in The Attomic Seasons and also among his son in things like Views From A Red Train or The Seven Letters From Tibet or even on What A Blast not only redefined the Tangerine Dream of the last couple of decades, but also redefined electronic music. Proof? Even Jarre, who was also a pioneer, wants to follow their steps and embrace TD's evolution, but most artists who want to do this get stuck and don't know how to continue and so they keep on experimenting, something that TD with Edgar Froese had clearly dominated (something of a mistake to think that you're way beyond things, because that increases your ego and therefore you churn out a lot of mediocre stuff and get more preoccupied with releasing every tour on CD/DVD/BLU-RAY and with looking like an all-time powerful angel/god, as is the case of Edgar in the last three years or so, but that's still a mimimum percent of his work).

You only read what you want to hear. You overanalyze my posts, but there's nothing to analyze. I'm quite clear on everything, even if I write a lot.

By the way, just because you heard a couple of sounds like Phaedra on Genesis Of Precious Thoughts doesn't mean that the Quantum Years are on the verge of being groundbreaking or even something new. I'm sorry to break your bubble and also everyone else's, but that's not going to happen. If anything, all these guys are doing is experimenting (again!!) only to see what sticks around. There's nothing innovative or imaginative here. They're going backwards. Which brings me again to your favorite track, Electron Bonfire: Yes, I don't deny that it's quite uplifting and a really good pop tune, but nothing more. The only progression is when the (predictable) rhythm enters the picture, but that's all. Sounds like jamming to me, no more. Marakesh, on the other hand, which by the way was not 20 minutes long but only 8 and a half minutes, is not jamming. It marks the beginning of an entirely new style in the TD universe. It's not only progressive, but also symmetric... So, do you even know what you're talking about?

I'm not libeling you, man. I've stood corrected all the time. I won't be careful for telling the truth. I don't even know who you are, and honestly don't care, either.

Wonder why the forum is so quiet these days

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imho

TD

/ did \
- does - ROCK!
\ will /

https://shiningpyramid.bandcamp.com/releases

http://www.redziller.co.uk/ffp/ TD video game

Seriously , how and why can ye be bothered arguing about this nonsense.

Lost the will to live starting to read through that, life is too short.

Go and stick some TD on ( THE STUFF YOU LIKE OBVIOUSLY !!!!! ) and enjoy it, hopefully.

That's what I am away to do.

PS

I never came here to argue, just to give my opinions on this release. But some people start telling me what to do (i.e. "maybe it's time that you gave up on TD") or they want to debate stuff. I'm always open to debate, even if it's about subjective things like these. If you people don't want to read me or want to overlook my posts and opinions, you're so very welcome to do so, I just won't stop giving them. Capisce?

As I said before, everyone has the right to say what they think but I just find it hard to imagine, when it obviously sounds like you have lost interest in the band, why you bother. If it was me and I didn't like what they were now doing and no longer had any interest in them, then I would just stop posting and find something else to take up my time. It just seems pointless to me spending time posting negative things on here because, if like me, you are still very much interested in TD, even without the mighty man himself, then I do not want to come on here just to continuously here this negative stuff. I want to here positive stuff about what we can maybe expect over the next 2 years perhaps, both in the way of music and gigs. I want it to be an exciting final phase of possibly the worlds greatest band. There is enough depressing things in the world today that I do not want that mood/feeling here on the TD website. If you have lost interest then go somewhere else and leave us that are looking forward to what is to come alone to enjoy it. Nothing personal - just don't want negative vibes on this site. Long Live TD and well done to Thorsten, Ulrich and Hoshiko for making it happen.

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Biggus Dickus

In MY OPINION, Quantum Key ebbs and flows with Edgar's spirit.

From time to time, I hear shades of "Poland" and "Phaedra" in some of these tracks, but I never took it as the band's attempt to re-capture or re-live "the good ol' days". I find QK to be a breath of fresh air and one of the more enjoyable TD releases to come out within the last 10 years (bold statement, I know).

The music on each track is evocative, emotional, wonderous, and has fantastic sequenced rhythms instead of the "plink-a-plink-a-plink" of some of the other releases (not mentioning any names because this is my OPINION).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you have given up on them because Edgar is gone, that is certainly your right, but IN MY OPINION, you are missing out on some really great music.

I look forward, with GREAT anticipation, to Quantum Gate.

Thorsten, Ulrich, and Hoshiko have their work cut out for them and some pretty big shoes to fill. Personally, I think they will do a fine job. As good of a job as Edgar? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell.

We have all been alongside TD during their "good" and "bad" releases (again, a subject of great debate and subjectivity). Why bail out now?

I was, am, and will forever be, DREAMING.