Search - Tangerine Dream :: 220 Volt Live

SMOOTH & DREAMY INSTRUMENTALS WITH ENERGY & INSPIRATION

Soaring Heart | 10/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"TANGERINE DREAM has a Unique sound with much feeling, variety, passion and emotion. "They are the first all synthesizer band in history, being recognized as the pioneer of electronic rock. They introduced new sounds, sound effects and production techniques." [paraphrased excerpt from the cd pamplet.] This is a great buy with almost 80 minutes of high quality music with gorgeous sound. Usually I am wary of live albums (some have poor sound quality but you needn't worry here!)Herein is powerful, soul-stirring music. I truly love every song:
1 "Oriental Haze"--a mellow song that floats and sounds exactly like its name.

2 "Two Bunch Palms"--the keyboards and guitar with the synthesizers--Yowza! Quite an achievement.3 "220 Volt"--the definition of grand intensity and soft, mysterious beauty all rolled into one. 4 "Homeless" begins as if you are lost in a jungle but not frightened. You are free. You are excited. You are happy you're alive! Home is where the heart is perhaps is what this song is saying. It definitely gives me the feeling of freedom. What really gets me is the mesmerizing depth and passion by the weeping guitar which comes in 3:05 into the song and continues to the end.

5 "Sundance Kid" is an active, dynamic piece with a smokey feel to it yet the music moves the listener through step by step getting you out safely at 5:07 into the song. Ahhh! Majestic ending that lasts and lasts, reaffirming the escape. Bravo! 6 "Backstreet Hero"--this and most of these songs conjure up images in my mind of running free through lush, green grass in woody forests looking up at the stars as I run. Smooth, upbeat music which I love to walk to.

7 "The Blue Bridge" --haunting beauty with mystery, sensuality, yet a purity that is bigger than even these powerful components. A breathtaking song to cherish. The saxophone along with the backdrop of the synthesizers makes this one of my favorites.8 "Hamlet" continues the journey yet now it feels like you are free to roam wherever--anywhere in this world or beyond. Powerful beat and that guitar! In gets me in a major way. 9 "Dreamtime" is my all-time favorite track on the cd. Very special song. No words to express what it means to me. It is my heart beating.10 "Purple Haze"--wow! Hendrixs' song in instrumental version. Who would have thought this could work? Commanding, well-done
version; a fantastic tribute that I believe he would smile to if he could hear it today.11 "Treasure of Innocence"--mellow and upbeat at the same time, winding down to THE DOOR. A perfect ending to a memorable, magical cd to be treasured in innocence!If you are in a creative field of work, I can guarantee that TANGERINE DREAM will inspire you to your maximum capacity. I love to write to it, fall asleep to it, go walking outdoors with my portable cd player listening and even meditate/pray with it on. 9.5/10 stars. There are no fillers/lackluster songs on TANGERINE DREAM 220 VOLT LIVE! I wholeheartedly and highly recommend this cd!Soar!"

Inspired music making!

Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 08/21/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

""220 Volt Live" is a recording from Tangerine Dream's tour of the USA in 1992. It is also the companion CD to the "Three Phase" video of the same tour featuring the same music. All in all, the concert is an inspired mix of the traditional Tangerine Dream elements of massed synthesiser choirs over sliding sequencer-driven rhythms with the newer elements of Linda Spa's bluesy sax playing, Zlatko Perica's guitar lines and a heavy drum-kit driven rock beat, so characteristic of many 90s Tangerine Dream studio albums. The main set consists of nine numbers, played in the usual TD live manner of two half-hour seamless segues. The concert opens with some trademark Tangerine Dream synth calls, announcing the start of 'Oriental Haze', a beautiful synthesiser ballad over a rising sequencer pulse into which a soaring sax line integrates effortlessly. The synthesiser rhythm track continues into 'Two bunch palms', this time beneath a powerful guitar lead which takes us into the heart of the concert's first set with '220 Volt' and 'Homeless', both of which are classic Tangerine Dream blends of chorused synths and singing guitar lines over a restless, ever shifting, sequencer pulse. The second half of the concert starts in traditional Tangerine Dream manner, too, with some unusual and tantalising synth voicing on 'Sundance Kid' with its sliding, overlapping sequencer pulses pulling the rhythm around in the way that Steve Reich loves to do in his works -- again, more hallmark Tangerine Dream. 'Backstreet Hero' starts out reminiscent of much of the earlier album, "Le Parc", but gradually the pure synthesiser elements in the music are squeezed out by rhythm guitar and drum kit. The transformation from old to new era TD continues in 'The Blue Bridge', where some traditional Dream synthesiser themes are gradually overpowered by the saxophone lead, before returning briefly as introduction to the soaring guitar-driven heart of the second half of the concert, 'Hamlet'. The main set closes with 'Dreamtime', in which the saxophone, guitar and rock drum-beat domination over the synthesisers announces in no uncertain terms that the old Tangerine Dream is dead! Long live Tangerine Dream! The disc has two fairly feeble encore pieces (one of which is an undistinguished cover of the immortal Jimi Hendrix number 'Purple Haze', about which, the less said the better, Grammy nominated though it may have been; the other, entitled 'Treasure of Innocence', is a synthesiser ballad typical of those that TD use to send people home from their concerts -- a sort of musical after-dinner mint) to finish what is otherwise an excellent Tangerine Dream performance. Once again, Froese demonstrates that he is at his most inspired when called upon to entertain a live audience, rather than when tucked away in a studio, producing bread-and-butter material for the record-buying public. There is over an hour of excellent music here (and that's ignoring the encores!) so even if you buy no other Tangerine Dream record of the 90s, make sure you have this one!"

Positively DREAMY Instrumentals!

Clarissa | Ontario, California | 10/13/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In many ways, Tangerine Dream is a lot like Mythos, but without the vocals. This is my first Tangerine Dream album so I'm unsure on whether or not they use voices on any of their other works but I'm pretty sure that they don't. Instead they delve further into the progrock genre with the electronic guitar, which can first be heard after the lovely jazz opener, "Oriental Haze". There's a lot of piano playing on here too, which usually shows up once the tracks begin to slow their pace. 220 Volt Live is somewhat dated, however, for its original release in the early 90s carries a definite sound that's akin to the 80s, but I hardly regard this as a flaw for it fits the overall feel quite well because of the consistency of the synthesizer. And while I don't enjoy Tangerine Dream as much as I do Mythos, they are definitely more complex in sound. The fact that this is a live album that features hardly any clapping strikes me as odd but, because of the fact that this is purely an all instrumental album, I was really shocked by the level of my enjoyment, which is pretty up there. Picking out favorites was a difficult task indeed but I seem to especially enjoy the ferocious beat and guitar raging "Hamlet", alongside the beautiful saxaphone playing of "Dreamtime" and the gorgeously mellow "Treasure of Innocence". (I positively melt whenever I hear those tunes...) This album took some time to grow on me but I highly recommend it."