Tangerine Dream: Hyperborea

I think I may have given this record its first spin on your turntable (or at least tried to; perhaps you vetoed it) late in 1983. I was just at the point of thinking Tangerine Dream might be going off the boil when this album came out and forced a rethink. Unfortunately it turned out to me a momentary blip and, Poland aside, the decline accelerated after this — from the point where Johannes Schmoelling left the band, I think.

But Hyperborea is more than just the "return to form" of popular myth. It experiments with an approach that Tangerine Dream had not dallied with before (or since, to the best of my knowledge), especially in the first two pieces No Man's Land and Hyperborea. The former has percussion that seems to bear the influence of Asian classical music, and a similar approach to melody, too: little will 'o' the wisp tunes skitter in and out on tip-toes, quite unlike the portentous and heavy teutonic themes usually favoured by TD.

The side-long track Sphinx Lightning doesn't quite maintain this standard. I have to admit I fell asleep in the middle, even with a cup of coffee in my hand, such is the residue of my jet-lag. But I was awoken when it picks up again towards the end.

MusicBrainz entry for this album