New colours, new look-and-feel, new functions: the promised very new TD site is on the web and running.

Edgar still considers the web as an artistic form of expression. It shouldn't be a problem, and, at the very first sight, the new TD page is a pleasure and an excitement for the eyes, no doubt. The colour set for the visual appearance he chosen is something a newbie in the life of the band and the clear heading fonts are wonderful also (just to name a few nice thing).

To continue on the good side, long-awaited functions got place: a real mp3 download section of the latest albums for a small amount of payment (TD Plays TD is there!), hot and fresh news (Madcap will be bundled with a full-length DVD with the production of the album!), an extended and very deep, personal FAQ section with valuable lines from Edgar himself (I suggest to read it at a quiet place thoroughly - a lot of clever things to learn...), a video box on the main page, a new forum, and the TD Universe part, where interesting things will happen, at least it seems to me now (I will not say more, try it!)

An interesting detail: Edgar probably considers TD as a oneman-band - we conclude it from the title tag of the main page which is "Tangerine Dream - Edgar Froese".

Also interesting is the use of a new domain. No, Franke didn't let over the tangerinedream.com URL to Edgar (which is a shame to Chris), Edgar uses tangerinedream-music.com for the main page (the old domains are still working, too but redirect).

In the beginning I promised some critical comments also and there is place for them, really. A general comment on the font size and colour: the content everywhere printed still with a very-very small and hardly readable font, with very strange colour setting sometimes (dark red-brown on black for example a heading - a very unfunctional selection - even if you see the text under it with a contrasty white).

We also have to blame the interaction model of the main page: the rotating discs are extremely spectacular but the mechanism of clicking with the mouse is very unclear - the Skip to content button doesn't seem working consistently at the bottom of the page, and clicking the discs have no result. But, if you are lucky you can reach the content just try enough.

A very awful solution is to use html frames within the page. This method is completely rejected by today's web design because of the failure in the interaction model it causes and the incompatibility with the search engines (especially Google).

I wouldn't say a bottom line on this really huge and heroic work which redefines even the TD project itself towards a very new direction - and we hope the mistakes will be swept out soon.