50th Anniversary of Tangerine Dream's Riccochet
We take you back 50 years again, this time to the 1975 album released by Tangerine Dream, Ricochet. It was the third of their Classic Virgin Quartet of albums, Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Stratosfear, all released within 2 years and two of them in 1975. Ricochet was the beginning of the Dream’s move to a more overtly rhythmic style with synthesized percussion. It was touted as a live album, but the first part was recorded in the Manor Studios in England out of live improvisations. The second side featured a chunk of a live performance from Croydon
The classic line-up of the dream with Edgar Froese, Christophe Franke and Peter Baumann had already stormed the continent with the albums Phaedra and Rubycon and were touring all over Europe, playing cathedrals, getting banned after playing cathedrals and tripping out a post-psychedelic generation with an entirely new musical sound built around synthesizers, sequencers and mellotrons. By the time of their concert tours in 1975, Dream had gone from the equivalent of a Piper Cub airplane to a space shuttle in terms of equipment. On stage they were surrounded by massive modular systems from Moog and Arp, plus Mellotrons, Elka String Ensembles and more. While Rubycon and Phaedra were almost purely electronic except for a Peter Baumann flute piece, Ricochet found Froese bring out his first instrument, the electric guitar. Rhythms also became more percussive with Christoph Franke playing drums on “Ricochet Part One,” while “Part Two,” the live side, found them working synthesized percussion into the mix. Melodies became much more overt and sequencer patterns more layered and interleaved. We’ll hear both sides for you today. There is a new stereo mix by Steven Wilson, but we’re going back to the original mix as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of another iconic work by Tangerine Dream, Ricochet.
See our list of Ten Tangerine Dream Albums to Blow Your Mind