There I was, reflecting on how the electronic acts of the last decade or two (Orbital, Chemical Brothers etc) don't do live albums the way their forbears like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze did. I wondered about the implications this had for how their music came into being — as programmed and remote rather than improvised and rooted in presence. Then I realised that must be nonsense because I couldn't think of anyone releasing a live album in the last decade. Oh, yes, Luna did one. But the big rock acts like Oasis, Radiohead, U2: they don't do them any more, do they? Presumably the demand for documents of live tours has been split between homemade bootlegs on the one hand and DVDs on the other.
Which is a shame to the degree that it narrows the opportunity for albums like this where bands present mostly new material in live performance.
At the time this came out it seemed like a copycat action following Klaus Schulze's live Dziekuje Poland album, which preceded it by a few months. Just coincidence? Or something in post-martial-law Polish audiences that brought out the best in German synth wizards?
This was recorded in Warsaw in late 1983, which, for me, was another peak in the work of this (probably my favourite) line-up of Tangerine Dream. You can hear them dabbling with the Indian rhythms that were a feature of the just-released Hyperborea album, but these are also spliced with the trademark throbbing sequencer runs, which are particularly muscular in the second half of Side 4. (How might dance music have been different if TD could have themselves exploited the rave potential of this electronic pulse, instead of leaving it to the Orb?) Apart from that, though, I felt on today's listening that this album wasn't quite as good as it could or should have been.
Unlike Encore, no photos of the band in shorts on the gatefold sleeve this time (not really recommended in a Polish December), just more images of the threesome treated by Frau Froese.
 MusicBrainz entry for disc 1disc 2 |
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