Perhaps some of you have noticed on the new official website: Edgar tries to sell his old Roland D70 synthesizer which worked for him more than a decade actively. The instrument hit the shops around 1990 and TD soon discovered its features: its sound (besides with the already-mentioned Korg Wavestation) characterised Rockoon heavily. Edgar later probably dropped the sound generator of this early digital instrument (successors had a lot more to offer), but the instrument could be found on-stage with him even in the latest performances: it functioned as a master keyboard for synth modules and software instruments because it is light, thin though has 76 keys, and has great touch for a player who deals string and pad instruments a lot (I even have a piece at my home setup - you hardly find a proper replacement on today's market).

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Many of you, TD listeners refuse the Dante trilogy because it is very different from the usual sound you get used to from Edgar in the decades. I don't want to fight with these valuations - it would eat up so much time and I have so few hope to win.

But.

The company has recently released a performance of the first part of the trilogy as a live DVD. After seeing the concert and the bonus videos anybody can easily change his/her mind on the topic. Because now it is clear: the Dante pieces are made for stage primarily. It is a very living project, it is full of colors, and all the staff on stage are playing with a very real and deep enthusiasm (watch Iris!). The camera settings and the visual editing are clever works also, and the whole thing makes a huge effect on the person who enjoys the disc from the very first second until the last notes. A wonderful experience.

I have to mention the very extensive extra video sets on the disk where the singers and the Froeses have monologues on the project. Edgar's words are especially worth to mention - as three points define a plane in the space his personality can be perfectly determined from his music, visual works and words. And the bonus of the bonus: he plays some classical pieces on a grand piano elegantly, with his unmistakable groove.

Magyar Narancs (Hungarian Orange), Hungary's most popular political and cultural weekly for the young people published a full-page article on the so-called Berlin-school phenomena in their Christmas 2006 issue. Narancs featured TD- and Klaus Schulze-reviews many times in its sixty-years history, and the author of these materials was István Bundula - expert of the topic - mostly, as this publication was also written by him. (I also got a page there for a review of the Shepherd's Bush Empire show in 1996.)

Here I provide you a quick and dirty translation of the original Hungarian text.

"It doesn't exist, but still it's here

The past and present of the Berlin-school

Though its name is established in classifying electronic music, the artist themselves are finding this aproach stupid. Anyway, today's stars benefitted from this style very much.

The avantgarde music of the 60s and 70s in Germany has much more colour and it's not fair to tighten it to its most popular names, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, or the Dusseldorf-based Kraftwerk. There were so many bands who share a common thing: the musical experimentation - and, at that time it was logically ended up dealing with synthetic sound sources. The Germans were not the first to employ them but they were the very first who used them excusively.

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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!)

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We've just received a letter from Voiceprint with some really good official news: the new studio album called Madcap's Flaming Duty is really on the way and planned to be released 2nd April. It is really dedicated to the memory of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, and features a long list of musicians: Edgar, Thorsten, Linda, Iris, plus Chris Housle, Bernhard Beibl, Gynt Beator, Thomas Beator and Vincent Nowak. (It seems to us that Jerome didn't work on this project.)

An official press release page can be found here, a promo CD can be ordered here with an exclusive interview of Edgar. We can also find info on the Tempodrom DVD release also - Voiceprint will resell it from April, also.

The Tempodrom live DVD is the breaking news of the week but we have to mention the two new CDs which are also available from now: first, Metaphor is a four-track EP and manufactured only in 1000 copies. Second, TD plays TD is a full disc of 14 track with such classics like Logos Velvet, Beach Theme, Sphinx Lightning and so on. It opens a new series of re-recordings and remixing, says the official source.

We are very glad to announce the great news: the video recording of the fabulous Tempodrom show is out now and anyone can order from the TDI shop!

We have to say a big thank you for the quick work for all of the participants, and will place our orders soon... :)

The price is a very fair 25 Euro.

Together with Tempodrom, the long awaited DVD of the Inferno show is also available, at the same price. We will have a very nice Christmas!

In 1982, one of the biggest pop sensation of our country was the so called Chip Festival where Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze performed (the third player, OMD has cancelled their appearance). It is great to recall memories for a lot of us from that time - a full, 11,000 people crowded arena, enthusiastic press activities and so on. We still had a very few western pop act playing live in Budapest...

Tickets sold at a very high price tag: my seat cost 140 Hungarian Forint and I even didn't have any view to the stage! (We had to leave the place and sat just right in front of the huge stage and held my heads up for more than two hours...) To have a quick comparison of the prices: the average workers' income was 2000 Forint per month...

The article I scanned here was originally published in a special edition colour newspaper which were filled with interviews of all the leading popstars playing in Budapest in 1982/83. I made the translation of the interview to English some ten years ago and it can be found some in the tadream list archive - if somebody helps me out to find it I will say a big thank you.

Some days ago a new video has appeared on YouTube: produced by a German television station in 1980, it contains interviews with the Froese-Franke-Schmoelling trio and live, improvised music of them at the TV studio. Since we have very few material containing true 70s-style improvisation of the Schmoelling era it is a must have for all of us within the TD community.

The video has split into two parts: 1 and 2, and for those who want to take the music with their iPod I grabbed and cleared the three musical parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Format is 192 kbit mp3.

According to Voiceprint, a new studio album release is close to us: the debut planned early next year, and the title is "Madcap's Flaming Duty". The news release promises a monumental album which is hard to ignore. More in Heiko's post at Yahoo Tadream.

Since its debut of 1983, digital FM synthesis always played a crucial role in creating the TD sound. Many of the well known sound programs of the 80s came from these Yamaha devices - the first and flagship product of them was the legendary DX7, there were no any keyboard player in the world who would miss it.

Among the huge wall of TD sounds created with this instrument I have to mention the most characteristic one which is easily recognizable at the very first moment of listening for all the TD fans. This is a sound program called Stratotron (audio sample) and it already existed in the 1980s - at least I had it in my DX7 also. The source of this patch is not clear (if anybody knows anything please contact), but had a great success in Edgar's studio and later at numerous scene of the e-music industry. Lots of instruments and sample banks, CDs, download services include this sound (for example the leading Hungarian sample source for the Reason system, Reasonbanks.com).

The legend got an extra attention when Native Instruments, king of software synthesizers released their FM instrument called FM7, based on the architecture of the original DX7 though utilised a most advanced technology. Engineers at Native seem to love TD too because an advanced version of Stratotron called Six-String (audio sample) received the very good 2nd position of the preset sound set. Six-String differs very slightly from the original - it has shorter sustain and release phases and has a delay effect (the original DX7 had no delay effect incorporated).

In addition, the original Stratotron is still available in FM7, the second preset bank contains it, at position 111.

Some weeks ago FM7 has updated, the new version, FM8 has a dramatically redesigned feature set but it still contains Six-String and Stratotron.

Just arranging the Berlin picture sets we took during the september trip - and we still have treasures in the photo-mass.



Just a quick sample that Berlin looks like a TD-city on the D-day of September. The tangerinedream.hu-weared people of us has invaded the town from the morning and made a serious attention of wondering everywhere.






Of course a lot of us has run about the famous house in Schwabische Strasse where the TD-center can be found. We can prove the success of this mission with this photo.







Merchandising is always a big business at a TD-event - and we had to contribute in succeeding it at the Tempodrom also. The set you can see here does not cover our full result - indeed it is only a very small fraction of it. We didn't want to impress anybody with the huge amount of items jamming into a single picture - it was composed in this way only by a specific artistic conception.

Sad news from Heiko Heerssen, father of the Tangerine Tree and Leaves project: he will quit from this business and will not release any additional live concert recording. I shouldn't say it will influence our everyday life heavily but at this point we have to say a big thank you to Heiko for all the work they put into a project which was so important to us.

You can find Heiko's original message here at Yahoo Groups "tadream", or you can read it below.

" I assume the subject line will cause some irritation or even
frustration, but I decided to put an end to both the "Tangerine Tree"
and the "Tangerine Leaves" series immediately. I will also no longer
offer any recordings on my website (which closes down at the end of
October).

I had several reasons to do this, the most important though is that
the project (and the copying) ate up nearly all my spare time, and I
have now reached the point of no return...wife or TD, the age-old
question :-)

Lately is was more like a 'TD shadow economy' I was caught in, and I
had a growing discomfort about what I was doing. I also became
gradually aware of the legal problems I could be faced with (like
releasing archive material from TV stations although I signed an
agreement which cleary stated that this was for personal use
only)..Risky business..

And last but not least, some dubious people tried to jump onto the
wagon by selling TT copies in shops for the price of a real CD.

So I'm going to pull the plug now, look back with a bit of pride and
heroically ride into the sunset ~LOL~.

Heiko"

Occasionally I had to return to Berlin exactly one month after the Tempodrom show and collected an other TD-related photo piece of the city.

What you can see in this picture is  probably one of the ten scariest building of the world: ICC aka International Congress Center, where Tangerine Dream played in 1981 and in 1982 also their regular tour programs. The building is so massive and huge that you fell yourself a little mouse - the aesthetics are awful enough also but the TD shows played inside 24 years ago were wonderful - the evidence of 1981 is out at your hands from the Tangerine Tree series (Volume 56) and copies of 1982 are circulating heavily also.

Having a closed nature electronic music touched me from the radio first. Oxygene and Equinoxe from Jarre has amazed me, and  after the next step - Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon - I discovered Man Machine from Kraftwerk. This album was my favourite for a while, until I catched TD's Thief from the Hungarian Radio in 1981. I wasn't completely sure at first listening that it's the music of my taste but when the wonder of Quichotte has touched my ears I knew TD will influence my life heavily - musically, at least.

White Eagle soon released and since I studied cooking next to the Budapest Sporthall I've early learnt the fact TD will perform at Chip Festival, October 1982, at this location (Klaus Schulze appeared also).

I had the chance to enjoy this wonderful event with a friend which I consider to be my best concert experience ever - even if I count that a technical problem caused some minutes of extra break during the first half (this breakdown had a favorable result to us - TD played some minutes of extra program which was never performed elsewhere; just check our earlier post). On the picture you can see the building of BS which was completely burnt out in 1999 and rebuilt immediately with a very different look.

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TD's effect on contemporary synth design generally very well known - but there are interesting details which are to be revealed to the public audience. We try to cover some of them.

First of all, let's get into the famous Japanese synth maker, Korg's Wavestation. It was based on a late 1980s american synthesis idea called Vector Synthesis which is able to create exciting digital sound with lots of movements - it was a breakthrough because everybody assigned digital synthesis with the static, lifeless sound. TD used the Wavestation family very heavily in the early 90s years, especially Rockoon and 220 Volt were full of vector sounds. The last member of the family, Wavestation SR contained almost 1000 sound program, and one of them is dedicated to TD by name "Tangerine D.", and by the specific character of sound it produced.

Our picture shows the software version of the original synth released two years ago by Korg itself. Basically it has the same sound like the original hardware synths but now it has much more features sonically and practically also.

To demonstrate this sound program called "Tangerine D." we prepared some small audio files. The program splits the keyboard into two parts. In the bass you can play on an automated octave bass sequence which has the same delay effect you get used to on 70s TD recordings. Click to hear it.

At the upper side of the keyboard you can reach a short sawtooth waveform segment layered with a sustained synth string sound - also a TD sound classic. Check it monophonic or in a usual-TD C minor chord.

Finally we will try how close we can get to a TD performance with two-hand playing :)

We are sorting the photos taken during our Berlin stay and I realised we still didn't publish any group photo of us. To tell the truth we have no photo where all of our 22 people are on but this one is the closest approximation.

In the background you can see the Tempodrom stage while being deconstructed after the show and our faces reflect the mixture of shock and joy which caused by the stormy 3+ hours TD show. Hope we will soon get again such a terrific event.

Berlin is a nice and interesting city where almost every place is soundtracked by TD. This is especially true for this building on the picture. Don't guess why, we tell you: it is Palast der Republik, where the world famous 1980 concert took place. (We hope everybody knows the historical impotance of this event so we will not polish its glory further.)
The building now is under a complete renovation and has no walls at all...

How Tangerine Dream put itself on my map? That is, how I did first came into contact with TD. Well, not an interesting story, but maybe it shows how diffenert we, TD lovers, have different tastes within the music that TD gives.

One day in ~1992, I went to the library (where I used to borrow cd-s) to get some music of my taste. As I was searching through the discs, I realised that I have listened to most of them (that were interesting for me), and nearly turned my attention to the books, when suddenly, I saw something that made my eyes look sharp with excitement. There I saw a CD with a curious cover. It is wise to know, that I'm fond of space related things very much, and love all that kinda pics of deep space, like the ones that can be found as the Messier Objects. So, there was this album. Took it out and read: Tangerine Dream - Cyclone. Never heard of this band before, but I said, lets see, what kind of music is under this nice cover. So took it home, put into the player, and from the 1st second I was very excited. I liked Steve Jollife's vocals and the music, an instrumental like, that was and will be my always number 1 taste. I liked the album immediately. I said to myself: "Music is space-like, cover is space-like, oh boy, what else do you need? These tastes combine in one thing!" I was thrilled to find something new for me, that might bring new feelings, and new adventures to my life. I started to look more information after this band. I was hungry for more, and to my happiness I came into contact with other albums. Lots of albums, like Tangram (my all time favourite), Zeit (in my top ten), Force Majeure, Stratosfear, Phaedra and Rubycon my biggest classics of TD, etc.

So, it was Cyclone, that made me a TD fan. Yes I know, many of you find this strange, and this is why I said at the beginning how different we find the feeling of music of Tangerine Dream. Because many of us know, that Cyclone is not considered as a big hit of TD and if I'm in the group who dislikes this album, then maybe, I'll never write this little story, or meet good friends all over the world.

Now, I dedicate some nice pics I like to Cyclone for giving me many many happiness throughtout the years since I know Tangerine Dream, and surely it will give more:

Keep on dreaming everybody, and don't forget to spread "Tangerine Dream is a universal language". :)

After a year of waiting the third episode of the Dante-trilogy, Paradiso has arrived to us. Inferno was a surprise of his experimental orchestration; Purgatorio set the level even higher with returning to a more conventional pop sound but keeping Inferno's advancements - Paradiso is something mixed from the predecessors (or at least it seems so at the very first listening). Monumental string orchestra, contemporary drum beats, lovely vocals - Paradiso has enough arsenal of excitement factors to dazzle the TD-community worldwide.

Paradiso debuts the TDI-shop next Monday. Be there.

With a big apetite, I myself have waited for the big day for the start of this journey to Berlin to see Tangerine Dream live. It was a great achievement from us that 22 members of our club could menaged to go, thus making us to be in the top three nations for sure who payed a visit to this great band. This was the second time I have seen TD on stage and I have enjoyed it very much. Although, the Hungarian Fans were suprised the way the seats were arranged at the concert, because when the first class tickets were bought it was supposed to be counted from the inside of the right column, but not from the outside. That means some fans have find themselves near to the right side of the auditorium. Strange.

Anyway, the concert was great, the spectators were great, especially, when they (including me :) ), didn't let the musicians to have a break. This showed, how much the fans were hungry for a TD concert. Still, I was a bit suprised to see some empty spaces at the auditorium, just like to see no advertisemet in the city. Why? Actually, we saw one in a ticket office that was kindly asked to give it to us. Now it has arrived to a good place in Budapest, Hungary to one of our members ;-) ).

It was also a great feeling to meet other international TD fans. I have been talking with them in TD forum, but shaking their hands, have a chitchat, was a fantastic feeling and experience for me, and the Hungarian Fans. We were glad that everybody loved our uniform. Believe me, we love them too, very much. It was interesting to see the people's faces at the concert and on the streets, when they saw us. They smiled friendly. :)

About Berlin, it is a beautiful city. I have loved it a lot, surely I'll visit it again. The people are really very nice and the buildings are breathtaking. Everything was really fine. I have enjoyed myself very much. And because I have menaged to get some TD stuff (for me treasures that you can see on the photo above) made me glow in delight. :))

Thank you Berlin, thank you Tangerine Dream and thank you Hungarian Tangerine Dream Fan Club for the great experiences.

TD always releases an EP dedicated to their memorable events - it's a tradition already and it continued in Tempodrom with this nice piece.

The title of the disk is the same as the event: "40 years roadmap to music" and the cover contains three brand new track from the latest works of the band. It can be strange but neither track were played at Tempodrom actually but they are very enjoyable songs landmarking the post-groovy era. All three tracks seem to solo compositions: the first is by Edgar, second is from Jerome, and the las-but-not-least produced in Thorsten's sequencer program.

Titles are:

1. Tangines On and Running
2. Quartermaster's Nightmare
3. Day Shift

A TD performance always draws kind attention to the technical details. We are not in the position to cover the whole equipment on stage but we noticed one or two things.

The synth setup was combined from software and hardware synthesizers. Edgar played mainly his old Roland D70 - this early digital synthesizer (some 15 years old) is a very usable solution to have a good quality 6-octaves keyboard to control software instruments and it doesn't fill to much space. Just on the top of the D70 was a Roland JP8000, Roland's first virtual analog synthesizer. This 4-octaves keyboard is not a new model also - ten years passed from its debut. Its sound generation is completely digital but emulates theworkflow of the classic analog synthesizer.

Thorsten had an Access Virus, Germany's top virtual analog synthesizer, and the latest virtual analog from Korg called Radias. Perhaps this was the newest instrument on stage debuting the market early this year. Jerome played the JP8000 also and sme other keyboards.

The dominant visual element of the stage were the three big flat monitors behind the regular members - the displayed software instruments they used. On Edgar's side his display showed mainly Native Instruments' FM7, a late successor of Yamaha's classic keyboard from the 80's called DX7. It is responsible many of TD's classic sounds - including the 2nd factory preset which is perhaps the most recognizable sound program of the band. Thorsten's monitor displayed the control software of hir Korg Radias and Jerome used Native Instruments' Kontakt sampler - today's very top sampling solution. The stage was full of computers and laptops so we suspect that even more software instruments were actively used during the performance...

A massive 2000+ audience filled Tempodrom of Berlin almost fully and having a great experience of Edgar and Co. which meant a total of seven people on stage now. On the first floor gerald Gradwool played their guitars and a new guy (anyone knows his name?) played violin and acoustic guitar. The second floor was occupied by the regular members, Edgar, Jerome and Thorsten while the upper floor was the territory of the girls: Linda and Iris.

The set was somehow similar to the latest London concert but very different on the other side. A selection was played from almost all of the eras but the tracks were chosen differently with a completely new concept; there were a very few overlaps between the two event. Here is the setlist:

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The Hungarian commando is almost ready to fly - the first chunk (including me) arrives tomorrow and will spend the evening in the Tiergarten perhaps.

Our uniform has arrived to the headquarters today and the quantity rapidly decreases... You will find a lot of this T-shirt at Tempodrom; but not for sale! :)

The next post will take place here Friday evening after my return from Berlin - it will contain an extensive concert review and the set list of course (I hope).

Only 3 days to the event! Good luck to Edgar and the band! Dream on!