The last official studio album for Virgin, Hyperborea, was recorded in August 1983. The title refers to the mythological land beyond the cold North wind, an earthly paradise of eternal sunshine. In Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical book Hyperborea is named as the second earth race after the so called Polaric race, followed by the Lemurian, Atlantis and Aric race. In a interview with the journalist Mark Prendergast in January 1994 Johannes Schmoelling remembers: "Like Logos Live, Hyperborea was determined by the new generation of digital synthesisers and sampling technology. We were able to memorise sounds and used a lot of sampled drum sounds. We invented new rhythm structures by using a special arpeggiator technique and so on. The title No Man's Land was influenced by the film 'Gandhi' and its brilliant soundtrack."
Re-Releases
In 1984 the album was released on CD for the first time as part of a series by Virgin. With the exception of Exit, all releases of this series had a similar cover design, using only part of the original artwork in a monochrome border that featured the band and album title.
In 1995 Virgin re-released the album on CD in the so-called "Definitive Edition" series, featuring the original front cover artwork, but like most of the other releases of this series, it contains a little error: The composition Sphinx Lightning is misspelled Sphinx Lighting on the CD body.
In 2012 the original 1983 album was re-released as part of the compilation box The Virgin Years 1977-1983.
In 2020 the album was newly remastered by Ben Wiseman from the original tapes and re-released both as part of the Pilots Of Purple Twilight box set and as individual album.
Hyperborea 2008
In 2008 a completely reworked version of this album has been released, titled Hyperborea 2008. It features new cover artwork, completely different from the original congenial design that had be done by Monique Froese. Though the track listing mentions just four compositions (identical to the original album), the recording consists of five tracks, as the title track Hyperborea has been split into two individual compositions. In fact the original composition consisted of two clearly distinguishable parts which had been connected by a short bridge only.
The booklet contains quite extensive liner notes by Bianca Froese-Acquaye:
About the album title: "The name Hyperborea derives from the Anthroposophical Philosophy. It teaches people about the five principle developments of mankind. The hyperborean -- the second period millions of years ago -- describes a status of the human race which just had started to build a kind of an ethnic human system."
About the original recording session: "The original recording session back in 1983 had a bitter-sweet aspect. TD's contract with Virgin expired and Hyperborea became the last official recording for them. The band itself was very much disillusioned in regards to some bizarre experiences with their record company but had to give them one more album. Despite the business situation, the band just came back from their second Australian tour filled up with experiences screaming to be transferred into sounds and music. Johannes and Edgar had just gotten the first two Waveterm units on the market. Incredible tools as far as new sound design techniques were concerned. Creating independend structures and rhythms while storing everything on big floppies -- back in 1983 a great luxury. The frustrating situation with Virgin could be sweetened a bit by working on a level of high spirits and with state-of-the-art equipment. Some critics said, if you listen to TD's music wall to wall you are in the middle of the most fruitful high tech development as far as music composing and performing is concerned. Hyperborea became another important chapter within the book of popular modern music." Notably this section completely ignores the fact that (besides Edgar Froese and Johannes Schmoelling) Chris Franke was member of the group at that time.
About the new version: "When starting the re-recording of Hyperborea in 2008 it had to be clear which way to go -- following the original tone by tone and sound by sound or analyzing everything in order to find a hybrid form of interpretation. So finally you recognize melodies, rhythms and sound colours -- but you are lead into a different atmosphere, not so much the sentiments of yesterday rather than tghe here and now. Most of the instruments from the first recording session do not exist anymore, but it is a huge advantage to still have the same studio engineer on board. A mass library of approximately 2 TB can serve you with all sounds you can think of since the first synth sound developments more than 40 years ago. Hyperborea 2008 has been a huge body of hand-made work as well as sound research but we believe it was worth it."
In September 2008 the re-release became available as MP3 download at the Tangerine Dream Download Shop as well, and in March 2009 Hyperborea 2008 was re-released with different cover design as part of an extensive digipack series (consisting of a total of more than 60 CD and DVD releases) by the Germany based Membran record label. This release shows a corrected track listing consisting of five tracks. In May 2009 the album was re-released in Japan as part of a series of HiQualityCDs with mini LP paper sleeves.
Releases
Australia
1983: Virgin
Promo-LP [a]: V 2292; white promo labels, gsc
LP [a]: V 2292; picture labels
Canada
1983: Virgin
Promo-LP [a]: VL 2383; red/white labels, gsc
LP [a]: VL 2383; red/white labels
Europe
1995: Virgin
CD [a]: 839 446-2; identical to UK version from 1995
2020: Virgin/Universal
CD [a]: 089 770-5; multi-coloured disc
Finland
1983: Virgin/Polarvox
LP [a]: V 2292
France
1983: Virgin
LP [a]: 205 801; picture labels
LP [a]: 70 132; picture labels
1984: Virgin
CD [a]: CDV 2292; identical to UK version from 1984
Germany
1983: Virgin/Ariola
LP [a]: 205 801; picture labels
1984: Virgin/Ariola
CD [a]: 610 373; identical to UK version from 1984 with the German order number on a sticker fixed on the jewel case
1993: Virgin
CD [a]: 786 688-2
2008: Eastgate
CD [b]: eastgate 029 CD; multicoloured disc; matrix code: 9233 east HB08; no order number on disc or inserts; limited edition of 2,000 copies
Download [b]: complete release or individual tracks as MP3
2009: Membran
CD [b]: 232634; digipack
Greece
1983: Virgin
LP [a]: 062-VG 50032; red/green labels
Italy
1983: Virgin/Dischi
LP [a]: V 2292; red/green labels
Japan
1983: Virgin/Victor
Promo-LP [a]: VIL-6091; white promo labels
LP [a]: VIL-6091; red/green labels
1988: Virgin
Promo-LP [a]: VJL-127; red/green promo labels
LP [a]: VJL-127; red/green labels
CD [a]: VJD-127
1990: Virgin
CD [a]: VJCP-2524
Promo-CD [a]: VJCP-2524; same as regular release, but with additional red promo sticker
