Some bands pioneer a genre, a few acts transcend codification, and the rarest of groups defy classification altogether. Tangerine Dream managed all three.
“Tangerine Dream’s music is a combination of a strong and defined concept that includes procedures, scales, and philosophical aspects bundled with the ideas and characters of the single individuums,” emails bandleader Thorsten Quaeschning. “So hopefully that stands for itself. From my view, the connection of humans and an emotional approach transferred to modern technology and instruments is very special.”
Switched on in Berlin, 1967, the German circuit breakers wrote a code unique to all music. Wherever noirish synthesizers meet cinematic progressiveness, people brand it Tangerine Dream-like. Founder and final original member, Prussia-born Edgar Froese, who passed in 2015 at the age of 70, bequeathed the everlasting act to his wife, Bianca, and Quaeschning. The former manages the quartet: classical multi-instrumentalist Quaeschning, violinist Hoshiko Yamane, key manipulator Ulrich Schnauss, and Paul Frick of fellow Berlin electro ensemble Brandt Brauer Frick, whose Daniel Brandt also showcases at SXSW 2023.
“Edgar never saw it as if everything was already ‘said and done,’” emails Bianca Froese-Acquaye from Berlin. “For him, life was a constant flow and the only constant was change, evolution. Perhaps many think TD have already ‘said and done’ everything in their early days, but that can never be the way an artist thinks and acts.
“Otherwise, for example, he never would have approached the work of Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy) and composed an electronic opera from this material. Edgar was a restless, driven musician. Not a day went by without him composing. Music was his lifeblood, his way of expressing emotions and thoughts in harmonies or disharmonies.
“Creativity meant everything to Edgar. I’m grateful I was able to share so many endlessly creative moments with him.”
Tangerine Dream
Thu 16, 12:20am, Parish
This article appears in March 10 • 2023.
