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Tangerine Dream
Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
A William Friedkin Film

Sorcerer

- Soundtrack, released 1977 -

Covers


CD release USA 1993

CD counterfeit release Russia 1997?

CD counterfeit release Russia 1997?

CD release Europe 2012

CD release Germany 2014
Artwork: Bianca Froese-Acquaye

Download release 2014
Artwork: Bianca Froese-Acquaye

LP release Europe 2020
Artwork: Tony Stella


Tracks

[a]
1.Main Title 5:33
2.Search 2:58
3.The Call 2:10
4.Creation 5:02
5.Vengeance 5:35
6.The Journey 2:02
7.Grind 3:00
8.Rain Forest 2:41
9.Abyss 7:13
10.The Mountain Road 2:00
11.Impressions Of Sorcerer 2:57
12.Betrayal (Sorcerer Theme) 3:44
Total running time44:55
[b]
1.Search [2014 re-recording]4:17
2.The Call [2014 re-recording]4:52
3.Creation [2014 re-recording]8:03
4.Vengeance [2014 re-recording]6:05
5.The Journey [2014 re-recording]4:45
6.Grind [2014 re-recording]6:38
7.Abyss [2014 re-recording]7:49
8.Mountain Road [2014 re-recording]5:44
9.Impression Of Sorcerer [2014 re-recording]6:54
10.Sorcerer Theme [2014 re-recording]3:49
11.Approaching The Danger 5:44
12.Servant Of Misery 4:48
13.Rain And Thunder 7:44
14.In The Mist Of The Night 5:51
15.Nebulous Jungle Path 7:21
16.Distance And Hope 7:04
17.Jungle On Fire 8:32
18.Crash At Dawn 6:08
19.Fast Ride To Disaster 6:49
Total running time118:57


Details

Recording date1976
Composer(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Musician(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Producer(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann


Notes

"In the bottomless silence. Without warning
A curtain slowly ascends revealing
A midnight dawn. A whisper of chill wind
And white sun eclipsed by pale yellow moon.

Rumor of distant thunder trembles along the
edge of a galaxy
Cascading down infinite corridors of burning
mirrors reflecting and rereflecting
momentous oceans of stampeding
wild horses.
Glass shatters, shrieks and spins away
becoming clusters of starfall that scatter
from hidden places. Pulsating. Relentless
like a recurring nightmare.

Centaurs throb within the blood crossing
arteries of storming cavalries that
crash though the top of your head
Recycle and recur
Again and again
Reminding of white suns eclipsing oceans of
stars shrieking through the midnight dawn.
Never ending. Without warning."

- William Friedkin

 


After the European tour in 1976 Tangerine Dream started to work on a soundtrack for William Friedkin, the director of "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist". Sorcerer was a remake of Clouzot's "The Wages Of Fear" from 1953 about a risky truck transport, featuring now Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou and Ramon Bieri. William Friedkin had decided to make a film around whatever music TD would produce.

 


More information about this movie is available at The Internet Movie Database.

 


Chris Franke remembers: "William Friedkin had heard our music in Los Angeles. He rang up and said he liked it, that it was innovative and new, and that he'd like to do a film with it. He was interested in having the music playing for the actors on set. We felt very independent from all of this as the music was created with us in a room in Berlin, with an eight-track tape recorder and the script."

 


And Edgar Froese later recalled: "The Sorcerer soundtrack was recorded on an old eight-track Ampex tape machine in Berlin. It was one of the four machines that were in Abbey Road Studios in London, which were sold after the Beatles era. We had rented an old movie theatre in Berlin and made a small studio out of it. The Moog was very useful, and by this stage we were quite versed in its use. We also used a Fender Rhodes piano, guitars, and even Revox tape machines as delay units."

 


From the original liner notes by William Friedkin:"I first heard Tangerine Dream while in Munich for the opening of The Exorcist. Had I heard them sooner I would have asked them to score that film. A year later, we met in Paris. I told them the story of the film and gave them a script. It took more than two years to make Sorcerer. One day in the middle of a primeval forest in the Dominican Republic, about six months into shooting, a tape arrived from the Dream, containing ninety minutes of musical impressions. It is from this tape that the film has been scored, though the musicians had not then nor even now as this is written seen any of the footage. Yet somehow they were able to capture and enhance every nuance of each moment where the music is heard. The film and the score are inseparable."

 


According to the original cover, TD used the following equipment:
  • Edgar Froese: Fender Stratocaster & Gibson Les Paul Custom Guitars, Twin keyboard Mellotron Mark V, Steinway Grand Piano, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, ARP Omni String Synthesizer, PPG Synthesizer, Modified Moog Synthesizer
  • Chris Franke: Moog Modular Synthesizer, Projekt Electronic Sequencer, Computerstudio Digital Sequencer, Mellotron, ARP Soloist Synthesizer, Elka String Synthesizer, Oberheim Sequencer
  • Peter Baumann: Projekt Electronic Modular Synthesizer, Projekt Electronik Sequencer, Fender Rhodes Piano, ARP Soloist Synthesizer, Mellotron

 


Though the film was no great success, the soundtrack went Top 25 in the UK charts and was a milestone in TD's future career as film composers.

 


From 30 Years Of Dreaming

[...] A new chapter in the career of Tangerine Dream would begin when they were asked by the American film director William Friedkin (who made movies like "The French Connection" and "Exorcist") to make the music for his movie. Friedkin was very enthusiastic about the music of Tangerine Dream and wished to use their music to make a frame around a re-making of Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear" from 1953. Tangerine Dream were handed the script and were given the opportunity to do whatever they wanted. Finally, it ended up with the rather unusual situation that the soundtrack was ready before the camera work began! While working in the jungle, William Friedkin placed loudspeakers all over the place and played Tangerine Dream's music to inspire and get the film crew into the right mood.

These very good and free conditions were perfect working conditions for Tangerine Dream and their electronic instruments. Froese: "All our knowledge about improvising and creating very fast meant that when we sat down for the first time and started to compose the music for Friedkin -- the first time I've ever composed -- it was so easy! It was so easy because we just put down in a few words: a few discussions about forms and melody lines and prism structures and so on. We wrote it down, we made some scripts and then we taped the lot!" (New Musical Express - July 1977).

When the movie finally had its premiere, Tangerine Dream were a little bit disappointed by the result: according to the band, too many of the tracks were not used in their entirety and lost a little bit of the idea, but in several places -- like at the beginning of the movie, where you see a helicopter passing over the South American rain forest -- the music fits perfectly. [...] The movie was never really a success, but when the soundtrack came out in the summer of 1977, it was nevertheless found to be on the English charts! This clearly opened some door to the film industry, where Tangerine Dream ended up being one of the most used bands for composing soundtracks.

For a long period of time the band made a good living out of making music for bigger and smaller movie productions. In the eighties you could almost talk about a mass production, until it got too much for Edgar Froese & Co. They have now stopped that line of work -- at least until further notice -- well, apart from some minor soundtrack production now and then.

© 1999 by Kent Eskildsen

 


Backtracking with Tangerine Dream

Edgar Froese: "This was the first time we'd been asked to do a movie soundtrack. William Friedkin, who produced 'The Exorcist', just gave us the script and told us to write music. The film hadn't even begun shooting! We were astonished, but some of it worked well, some of it didn't."

Chris Franke: "Making a film soundtrack is different from recording a studio album. You have to follow ideas of characters, plot, action, the meaning behind the film. You have to take into account the feeling of the producer and director."

(Interview with Johnny Black, thisBEAT, issue 17, April 1986)

 


Re-Releases

 


Fans had to wait nearly 16 years to get a CD release of the soundtrack. Finally, after several delays, it was released in early 1993.

 


In February 2012 the album was re-released by Esoteric Records on their Reactive label as part of a partial re-issue of the TD back catalog. The album was completely remastered and comes with a nice 16-page booklet including numerous photos plus an essay written by journalist Malcolm Dome. Unlike most of the albums of this re-release series, Sorcerer comes without any bonus track.

 


In January 2020 Waxwork Records re-released the album on coloured vinyl in a gatefold cover with completely new and different artwork. There are two variants: one is the version sent to customers who had subscribed for this release in 2019; the other is the regular retail version.

 


Sorcerer 2014

 


In April 2014 a completely reworked version of this album has been released, titled Sorcerer 2014 as a double CD release. Disc one features re-recordings of ten of the original twelve tracks, while the second disc comes with nine additional, new compositions, partly basing on older material. Especially parts of the two tracks missing on the first disc have been re-used here, overlayed with additional, new melodies and sounds.

 


In an exclusive interview by Tommy Jacobsen, Jacob Pertou and Peter Ravn for Jacobs Tangerine Dream Blog Edgar Froese about Sorcerer 2014: "At the time Sorcerer was composed in 1976, we had about ninety minutes on tape and another sixty minutes written down on sheet paper, notes and whatever. Out of the entire material we made a re-recording of the old stuff, and we recorded the material which wasn't used in the movie or never had been recorded before."

 


The Eastgate Music Shop about the CD re-release"Sorcerer 2014 is the first live 2CD recording from our new virtual eastgate music & arts music theatre in Vienna. With the quality of a studio sound you will hear the remake of the original analogue version of William Friedkin's 1977 movie Sorcerer. On the second CD you will hear material not used for the movie but which has a strong context to the analogue spirit of the time. If you couldn't make it to Copenhagen for the public world premiere, you will have here the virtual theatre version of the same music. Enjoy this adventurous travel with three trucks through the Mexican jungle."

 


Only a few days after its CD release Sorcerer 2014 became available as MP3 download at the Tangerine Dream Download Shop as well.


Releases

Australia
1977: MCA/ASTOR
LP [a]: MCA 2277; black rainbow labels
Belgium
197?: MCA
LP [a]: 4C 064-99194; black rainbow labels
LP [a]: 4C 064-99194; brown labels
Benelux
1980: MCA/Ariola
LP [a]: 201 315; black rainbow labels
Canada
197?: MCA
LP [a]: MCA 2277; black rainbow labels
Europe
2012: Reactive/Esoteric
CD [a]: EREACD 1023; multicoloured discs
France
1977: MCA/CPF
LP [a]: 414 012; black rainbow labels
Germany
1977: MCA
LP [a]: 0062.085; black rainbow labels
LP [a]: 62.085; black rainbow labels
LP [a]: 250 451-1; blue rainbow labels
1980: MCA/Ariola
LP [a]: 201 315; black rainbow labels
LP [a]: 201 315; blue rainbow labels
1993: MCA
CD [a]: MCD 10842
2014: Eastgate
CD [b]: eastgate 068 CD; multicoloured discs; matrix codes: eastgate 068 CD1 and eastgate 068 CD2; no order number on disc or inserts
Download [b]: complete release or individual tracks as MP3
Greece
197?: MCA
LP [a]: 14C 062-99194; black rainbow labels
Hong Kong
1977: MCA/Chiang Huat
LP [a]: MCF 2806; blue rainbow labels
Italy
1977: MCA/Dischi
LP [a]: 4002 (MCA-2277); black rainbow labels, cover with imprint "Il Salario Della Paura"
LP [a]: 4002 (MCA-2277); black rainbow labels
Japan
1977: MCA/Virgin
Promo-LP [a]: VIM-6149; white promo labels
LP [a]: VIM-6149; black rainbow labels
Netherlands
1977: MCA/EMI-Bovema
LP [a]: 5C 062-99194; black rainbow labels
New Zealand
1977: MCA/Phonogram
LP [a]: MCA 2277; black rainbow labels
Portugal
1977: MCA/Phonogram
LP [a]: 6328 837; light brown labels
Russia
1997?: CD Media
Counterfeit-CD [a]: 501997; silver/black/blue disc; booklet with subtitle misspelled "MUSIK..." instead of "MUSIC..."
Counterfeit-CD [a]: 501997; silver/black/blue disc; insert without subtitle; see-through jewel case spine
Spain
1977: MCA/Fonogram
LP [a]: 6328 837; black rainbow labels
1980: MCA/Ariola
LP [a]: I-201 315; black rainbow labels
1984: MCA/WEA/CBS
LP [a]: LB 250 451-1; blue rainbow labels
1984: MCA/WEA/Ariola
LP [a]: LB 250 451-1; blue rainbow labels
UK
1977: MCA/EMI
Promo-LP [a]: MCF 2806; black rainbow labels, promo sticker
LP [a]: MCF 2806; black rainbow labels
1982: MCA
LP [a]: MCL 1646; blue rainbow labels with title misspelled as 'THE SCORCHER'
LP [a]: MCL 1646; blue rainbow labels with correct title
1993: MCA
CD [a]: MCLD 19159
2002: MCA/Spectrum/Universal
CD [a]: MCAD 10842
USA
1977: MCA
Promo-LP [a]: MCA 2277; black rainbow labels, promo sticker
LP [a]: MCA 2277; black rainbow labels
8 track tape [a]: T 2277
1993: MCA
CD [a]: MCAD 10842
2020: Waxwork
LP [a]: WW045; multicoloured vinyl (blue and green swirl); subscriber variant
LP [a]: WW045; multicoloured vinyl (rainforest green and black swirl); retail variant
Yugoslavia
1981: Beograd Disk
LP [a]: LPS-1031; orange labels
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