1987 had proved a tough yr for Tangerine Dream. Although the extremely regarded digital visionaries may often depend on critics to roll out the superlatives, their most up-to-date studio set – the underrated, William Blake-inspired Tyger – had acquired lukewarm evaluations; it additionally closed the band’s account with Clive Calder’s Jive Electro imprint. Extra pressingly, TD chief Edgar Froese’s long-time first lieutenant, Christopher Franke, additionally took his go away in August ’87, departing after 17 years of energetic service, throughout which he’d performed a vital function in shaping the content material of all of the band’s albums since 1971’s Alpha Centauri. Sensing Franke’s presence can be sorely missed, Froese and Paul Haslinger determined to file TD’s subsequent LP, Optical Race, primarily as a duo, and place a better emphasis on expertise: particularly their newest acquisition, the Atari ST laptop, on which all of the album’s tracks can be programmed.
Regardless of the lack of Franke, nonetheless, recording Optical Race introduced Edgar Froese again into contact with one other key determine from his previous. Keyboardist and studio wizard Peter Baumann had featured prominently on all of TD’s groundbreaking releases from 1972’s Zeit to ’77’s critically hailed, US-recorded reside LP Encore, and it was his LA-based group, Personal Music, which issued Optical Race in August 1988.
Followers often informally discuss with the group’s time with Baumann’s imprint because the “Melrose Years”, as the corporate’s workplace was situated on L.A.’s iconic Melrose Avenue, however TD’s Personal Music catalog has regularly divided opinion inside followers, the trade, and even band members. Considered one of Optical Race’s largest critics was Edgar Froese himself, who insisted that the band re-record the LP in its entirety in 2002, for inclusion on the 3CD field set The Melrose Years.
Froese’s main beef was that the extreme use of programming made Optical Race appear chilly and sterile. Looking back, although, this motoric precision really enhanced the music every now and then – not least on the hectic titular tune, the place the relentless, piston-like beats added a manic edge to an already exhilarating Hello-NRG backdrop.
Elsewhere, Optical Race additionally proffered a few of the most beguiling and accessible melodies that Tangerine Dream laid down throughout the 80s. The North African-flavored “Marakesh” [sic] and the dramatic “Atlas Eyes” rivaled the most effective cuts from the evocative Le Parc; the dense, cyclical, sequencer-based “Turning Off The Wheel” credibly harked again to the group’s legend-building Virgin period; and the stirring “Sun Gate” – the one monitor to function enter from new collaborator Ralf Wadephul – allowed Froese ample alternative for an more and more uncommon, however extremely eloquent, guitar solo.
With Wadephul on board, Tangerine Dream undertook a prolonged tour of North America and Canada throughout the fall of ’88, however this line-up existed merely for the exhibits’ period. Certainly, inside a couple of months, Froese and Haslinger have been already reacting towards Optical Race’s modern, mechanized sheen and crafting Lily On The Seaside: a file which favored a big shift again in the direction of acoustic instrumentation.
