Stratosfear

In August 1976, Tangerine Dream went to the Audio studio in Berlin to record what would become the album Stratosfear. It was released in October, and at the same time the band went on a big tour throughout Europe to promote the album. More than 30 concerts in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, England and Scotland were accomplished.

Stratosfear is much more ordinary in its sound and expression than the earlier albums. The tracks are shorter than before and they are much more melodic. The music has a higher degree of tonality and a lot of acoustic instruments like the grand piano, the chembalo and the mouth organ (!). Edgar Froese made frequent use of his abilities on both the acoustic and the electric guitar. His very characteristic and melodic way of playing has later on become one of the trademarks of the band.

As so many times before, in these very early days of electronics, they had a lot of problems with their equipment while recording: Peter Baumann had a new sequencer, which it had taken a German company a year to build, but it was not completely ready and in the studio it did not work properly. When it was finally made to work, the multi-track recorders broke down and at one point, smoke was pouring out of the studio's Dolby units and they could not record without them.

The three members of the band were very frustrated and besides the technical problems they where arguing about what music they should play and have on the album:

Froese: "When I appeared in the studio one day with a harmonica, the absurdity of the situation was revealed. It was supposed to be a joke, retort to the unpredictability of the technology, but after playing it during the beginning of 3 a.m. At The Border Of The Marsh From Okefenokee, everybody decided to leave it on. So much had happened during these sessions -- master tapes at times disappeared from the studio, finished tracks were mysteriously erased and the mixing console finally went up in smoke. The events which occurred during the making of Stratosfear alone would fill an entire book!". (Interview with Mark Pendergast, January 1994, Tangents)

If you could feel the same mood on the earlier albums as in the movie, 2001 -- A Space Odyssey, then the cover of Stratosfear might be a clear reference to this movie; big monolith-like objects floating in formation over a deserted and strange landscape! Once again a spectacular cover from the hands of Monique Froese.

Stratosfear is a classic, and in my opinion, also one of the absolutely best albums by Tangerine Dream. Even the band members themselves must have been rather satisfied with the result, because the title track has often been played at concerts and been re-recorded in different versions -- the latest one on Tyranny Of Beauty with the title Stratosfear 1995.

Edgar Froese: "Somebody said Stratosfear has a sort of atmospheric circle round the music. It's hard to explain with words. Every music can do this, but that record has a particularly strange, mysterious atmosphere. Here again, some of the titles relate to Greek philosophy."

Chris Franke: "Normally, when we go into the studio, there's no music written and we work by a system of trial and error. We work like Salvador Dali, so we're more like developers than composers. We don't write music, then memorise it, then play it. No, we play little bits, record them on tape or in the computer, decide immediately if we want to keep them or change them. It's a kind of composition that could not have happened before, because you would need an orchestra to be playing all the parts."

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