Tangerine Dream‘s Phaedra

Phaedra was the album that saw Tangerine Dream move from relative obscurity to mainstream success. Championed by broadcaster John Peel, they reached the attention of Richard Branson and signed a deal for five albums with the Virgin label. Phaedra, released in 1974, was the first of these. It still sounds startlingly innovative, fusing what were then the latest synthesizer technologies with instruments including a Mellotron, organ, electric piano, guitar and flute. The use of sequencers to create rhythmic patterns was a new sonic experience for most listeners, while the processing of all the instruments through reverb and delay helped to create a template for ambience and atmosphere that still continues to influence music today. This book explores Phaedra in the context of the wave of experimental creativity in German music in the 1970s and the part the album played in the emergence of Kosmiche Musik, cosmic music, in 1970s West Germany.