Tangerine Dream

The Essential

- Compilation, released June 2006 -

Covers

CD release Europe 2006
Design: Nuit de Chine, Stefan Klein

Promo-CD-R release UK 2006

Tracks


		[a]
1.	Movements Of A Visionary	7:57
2.	Rubycon, Part One	17:18
3.	Stratosfear	10:35
4.	Cloudburst Flight	7:29
5.	Tangram Set One	19:51
6.	Hyperborea	8:37
Total running time		71:47

Details


Recording date	1973 - 1983

Notes

This compilation is not to be mixed up with The Essential Collection which was released almost at the same time but contains completely different material.

The Essential is once more a compilation of well-known material from 'The Virgin Years' (1974-1983), but other than its predecessors (like Dream Sequence or Tangerine Dream) it sets the focus on long, more progressive compositions instead of short, catchy ones. So it contains only six tracks ranging from seven to twenty minutes, arranged in chronological order.

The 4-page booklet includes some quite short liner notes about TD but no band photo. Instead the covers of three albums released by Virgin are displayed (Rubycon, Hyperborea and, strangely enough, Cyclone, of which no track is included on this compilation). The tracklist is accurate regarding the track titles and approximate running times, but the composers' names are spelled strangely once more, listing Chris Franke as 'Christophe Franke' and Peter Baumann as 'Hans Baumann'. The tracks are listed as digitally remastered in 1995, so it seems that the SBM remastered versions used for the 'Definitive Edition' in 1994/95 were used for this compilation. The albums the six tracks were taken from are mentioned in the liner notes.

The record includes tracks from the albums Phaedra (1974), Rubycon (1975), Stratosfear (1976), Force Majeure (1979), Tangram (1980) and Hyperborea (1983). This compilation contains no new material, so it not of great interest for TD collectors and fans, but (maybe in combination with the compilation The Essential Collection mentioned above, featuring material from 'The Pink' and 'The Blue Years') this album provides a quite useful introduction into a significant era of TD, especially as it contains all tracks in their original unabridged length which is rather uncommon for these kind of releases and illustrates the progressive character of these compositions.

Releases


Europe	2006: Virgin CD: 3 43983 2; white/black disc
UK	2006: Virgin CD: TAND 14; white/black disc; identical to Europe version Promo-CD-R: TAND 14