Atem

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-06-30 rating:
Tangerine Dream in early experimental mode
Perhaps conscious that fans were wondering what could follow "Zeit", which hadn't exactly got rave reviews, the band opened with something quite dazzling and stupendous. "Atem" means `breath', that's how it opens, with wind rushing through some vast cavern, like the breath of a wakening giant. Any thought of Space music is left at the post, for this is far more vigorous, exciting, and downright exotic than anything on the previous album. Chris Franke has a fair old thrash on tom toms, pounding away frenetically above Froese's blaze of mellotron, punctuated by the odd electronic explosion. It's like some huge panoramic Egyptian scene; "music to build the pyramids by" said Julian Cope, and for once he's not exaggerating. One of Tangerine Dream's best openings, it's fast and frantic. The climax is one large electronic explosion, but this occurs long before the piece is over. The middle section is more meditative, all softly rising and falling organ and mellotron, backed by occasional soft and rhythmic percussion. The piece comes to life once more, like a waking giant, and weird electronic helicopter sounds whip from speaker to speaker, as the music disappears back up the wind tunnel from whence it came.

The other tracks on this CD are shorter - it was a single album - and next comes "Fauni-gena", which starts with unnerving jungle sounds backed by a mellotron flute. More melodic than usual, but it sounds like it was recorded in an exotic alien aviary, eerie electronic chamber music from a distant planet. The mellotron slowly grows more dominant and turns from flute into strings.

"Circulation of Events" is almost a Tangerine Dream pivotal track. In some ways it's a return to the emptiness of "Zeit"; in others it indicates the direction the band were to take later in the decade. This is because where on "Zeit" the sounds exist and can be appreciated just for themselves, here there's a feeling of something missing. That something is visuals. The whole thing is like a soundtrack to a horror movie; jumpy, quirky, unsettling noises creep up on you, as if, as the sleeve notes put it "something is about to leap out of a dark corner and wreak havoc with an axe." This must have been scary stuff to hear near midnight on headphones when John Peel played it back in the 70s! The group went on to record dozens of soundtracks, but their origin is perhaps here.

"Wahn", the last track, has another surprise in store: vocals! Not actual singing, of course, but weird, primitive grunts, whoops and cries, sometimes sounding like a twisted Syd Barrett on that first Pink Floyd album. A twisted Syd? Now that has to be strange! Sudden crashes leap out of the speaker, sudden cries that make you think the band have gone round the bend. It's a short track, and one that ends with the usual Dream soundscape of ever lusher mellotron, but one that's quite startling nonetheless.

So is it worth getting? Well, if all you know of T. Dream is "Phaedra" and you like what you hear there, then yes, grab this and "Zeit" for a taste of what experimental electronic music was really like in the early 70s. It was `music to dissolve the mind' as the ads in N.M.E. read. If, however, you're a long standing fan and already have these classics on album, and they're in good nick, then I'd say don't let your vinyl go too quickly. I did think there was rather a lot of background hiss, something that with music as subtle and quiet as this can be quite intrusive. It's possible, in some instances, to hear it as part of their spacy music, and I suppose it's possible that it may be! Still, they'd be a good addition to most CD collections.

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review by: date: 2006-10-20 rating:
Another Superb Sounding TD Re-issue!

I didn't discover this album until well after I first heard their follow-up "Phaedra", so can't give a fair answer as to whether this would have blown my mind the same way. Despite this, there are some wonderfully moving sounds here, composed with much imagination, showing what the band could do just before the "sequencer" era took over.

The previous reviewer got it spot on. The title track starts heavy, climaxes and then goes into a gentle, but very varied soundscape, drawing the listener in to get lost in its vistas. The section starting at around the ten minute mark still sends shivers down my spine, as does the "helicopter" section at the end...

The last track, "Wahn", is the one I keep going back to. It starts with almost primitive voice shouts and screams bathed in effects and very beefy percussion which then gradually calms down, finishing the album all too soon.

The remastering for this version is really good too, sounding more like the early LP's to me than the rather muffled (in my opinion) Jive CD release I also own. There's a freshness and inner clarity here that adds to ones enjoyment and shows what modern (re)mastering can do. I'm glad that the hiss hasn't been got rid of either, as attempts to do this can spoil the sound.

A Sincerely recommended "transitional" album from TD's classic line up.



review by: Stonegnome date: 2003-01-27 rating:
The pick of early Dream
"Atem" was Tangerine Dream's fourth album, released in 1973. In many ways, it marks the group's furthest departure from the world of rock and pop and the closest they ever came to the sound world of the classical avant garde. It is interesting to note that, for the first time, no guest musicians are credited, suggesting that the group of Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann was settling down to working together and becoming more confident of their sound world.

The opening title track, 'Atem' (the German word for 'breath') clearly builds upon earlier TD material, like 'Alpha Centauri' and 'Zeit', being similar both in scale - it is over 20 minutes long - and style. In many ways, it is an updating of "Electronic Meditation", with Chris Franke's tom-tom drumming providing the main impetus over mostly organ and synth sounds in its early parts, and for its almost organic overtones. Present for the first time, though, is the distinctive sound of the mellotron, which was to become so much a Tangerine Dream trademark throughout the mid- to late-70s. 'Atem' is a beautifully structured work and has an exquisite central section, with a quiet heartbeat pattern played on tom toms, over an eerie mellotron loop and some beautifully textured patterns of white noise and, later, throbbing VCS3 sounds. At this point, TD comes close to the sound world of the electroacoustic musicians, especially of the French Canadian acousmatic school.

The next track, 'Fauni-Gena' is another largish work (almost 11 mins) which continues in a similar vein. The sound world here is suggestive of the primitive rainforest, with, once more, a haunting mellotron loop over the sounds of exotic birds and other creatures (whether real or synthesised is never obvious) carrying the listener's imagination off to far away times and places. Once more, it is highly redolent of the acousmatic school of composition.

'Circulation of Events' is another typical early TD meditative piece, featuring sustained organ and synthesiser notes over a rising VCS3 pulse. The final track, 'Wahn' (another German title: this one means 'delusion' - in the sense of that which gives rise to insanity!) is unique in the Tangerine Dream canon, however, in consisting of little beyond vocal utterings (grunts, mutterings, screams, shouts and so on) echoed and reverbed, before a rising percussion line restores some semblance of decorum and a gentle mellotron theme sings the work to a close. This is a track owing more to Ligeti's 'Aventures' and 'Nouvelles Aventures' and works of that ilk, than to anything from the rock or pop world. Perhaps the closest you can get to this nowadays would be Trevor Wishart's 'Vox cycle'.

This CD is a remastered release from original master tapes by TD's own Eastgate studio, so is probably as definitive a release as could be achieved. Its analogue origins remain apparent throughout, however, with tape hiss being quite prevalent, especially through the quieter passages, of which this disc has plenty. This needn't put you off, though, as the material more than makes up for these technical shortcomings, and I'm happy to report that the release is free of any particularly disturbing remastering artefacts. Although its 40 minute total playing time is less than generous by CD standards, this was typical of its day and this disc remains highly recommended to anyone wanting to explore the realm of early Tangerine Dream, or other works out of the mainstream of 1970's pop.

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