Tangerine Dream

BM awoke this morning and realised : 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the release of Cyclone. Of course, any band with a legacy as great as TD's will have many anniversaries....next year it will be Force Majeure...etc....etc

1978 seems an age ago, yet still its yesterday in my mind, I bought the LP nearly as soon as it was released, it was just before the BM family moved out of london to posh surrey, so it came at a change in my life [probably why I love the LP..TD music is memorymusic], and the music....BM has written before on this TD grenade, that cut through the fan base.......30 years on, its a dated and modern record..madrigal meridian still has an unholy power, BCSW and RRMBES still evoke odd whimsy, Cyclone, a classic TD record from the near end of the second TD classic period [each period becomes a classic....for many reasons]

in a year I will wax on Force M

When I first got into TD in the mid 90s Cyclone was one of the albums I rejected after hearing it, I didn`t like it at all. The vocals sounded poor and the music sounded dated.

I listened to it a few months ago for the first time since the mid 90s and to be honest its a very strange album, I dont hate it but I find it a challange to listen to it, I can appriciate it more now though as I like challanging music

its one of the reasons I enjoy these types of release, the challenge


MFD is a challenge as well

bigmoog wrote:its one of the reasons I enjoy these types of release, the challenge


MFD is a challenge as well

Yes the thing I have learned with TD is never give up on an album just because you don`t like it at first. I really hated MFD after the first listen but a year on it is probably one of my fave albums of recent times

yes, cantosis, I agree


optical race is another LP i was originally indifferent to mostly....now I absolutely rave about it

...TD music is memorymusic ...

This album impresses me since I heard it for the first time in 1978, when the LP was played completely in radio and I recorded it and listened important to my favourite Bent Cold Sidewalk dozens of times. Also now at every listening there is at least one repeat.

[probably why I love the LP..TD music is memorymusic]

yes BM, I totally agree, I couldn't have said that better...and that sequence from same title track...totally moving.
Cheers mates!! Happy Anniversary

Yep BM, I have very strong recollections of my first encounter with Cyclone. It was a "What the f*dge is this?" moment and I decided then and there that it was a real lemon.

Spin on a few years and I'm doing homework for college and getting bored with listening to same old albums. Like most students i was completely skint, so out comes Cyclone and I gingerly put it on the turntable and slink back to my desk. Next thing I know I'm really enjoying the heavy metallic sequencer lines, the woodwind instruments, the sparse drumming and even the bizarre vocals.

These days I see the album as a minor TD classic and definitely a must have for any TD fan. It shows TD taking a massive stride in a completely different direction, one that they rapidly retraced with the next few albums, but one that shows the band as willing to take risks.

still absolutely effing brilliant

My first encounter with Cyclone was the strange lad at school who carried the LP around with him every where he went for weeks on end.

The cover intrigued me greatly!

When I finally bought it years later, I thought WOW

Every time I listen to it I still think the same.................

amazing album

As with many music ideas from TD, the vocal treatments on Cyclone were ground-breaking. At first I was shocked, having this fixed idea of what TD was all about. (I've learned to ignore those biases since then).

The vocal treatment is sort of hard to pin down. Is it an electronic vocoding technique, or some hybrid combination of things? I've searched for a way to repeat that sound. Sort of a whispering scream. Very eerie and colorful.

Didn't I read somewhere that EF said the album was a failed experiment? Not so in my opinion.

-David

To me, Cyclone was very much like as "Animals" is to "The Wall" - almost the same timeframe in fact - a lot of ideas, sketches if you will, both new and exciting and yet still with the "classic" 70's sound in force, demonstrating more intriguing directions yet to come and as already mentioned a sad farewell to a wonderful era as TD began to me their second major re-invention (assuming of course you are with me on the pink to the virgin years being their first - PB's departure being the second?!). This was also heralding the end of their almost total domination of the synthesizer world, by then a lot of other "electronic" bands had begun to emerge and make a stand, blimey even PB by then had become a new romantic - what a fantastic picture on his first solo album!... so TD did what they did best - they re-evolved themselves
SJ made a wonderful re-appearance, how do you think it compares to the live works of the time? Tangerine tree 11 I think, Hamburg 78 - it's TD like no other era really!
Just as a footnote btw, I consider FM to be one of the finest albums anywhere, ever. That to me was TD's "The Wall" I can't beleve it's been nearly 30 years since I got the bug!

It is a nice album, but defenitely not my favourit. You love this album or you hate it. For me it is in between. I never get used to the vocals on it. But certainly it has its moments. I never played it very often, maybe I have to do that once more. There is a chance that I like it now after all those years.