Elly Roberts reviews
Tangerine Dream: Madcap’s Flaming Duty
Distributed by
Voiceprint Records
- April 2007
- Rating: 6/10
It must have been a daunting task,
marrying contemporary ambient music with literature from the past.
Tangerine Dream has pulled it off, but the music could have been
more interesting in terms of dynamics.
Dedicated to Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett (deceased July 2006), German '60s
band Tangerine Dream soldier on with a tribute to the influential spirit
of the legendary musical mind. In addition, TG use adapted lyrics from
English and American poets from 17th and 18th century literature by
Bianca F. Acquaye.
Music is written by Edgar Froese (a former classical music student) and
Thorsten Quaeschning, with one traditional Irish song, track 7.
Now into their fourth decade as an ever-shifting line-up, currently an
eight-piece in the studio, with only one founder member on board – Froese –
many have dubbed them self-indulgent post-psychedelic electric doodlers.
Here, however, if you check the liner notes, there’s a host of ‘real’
instruments such as violin, mandolin, Irish bouzouki, bodhran, dobro,
blues harp (harmonica) and usual drums, guitars, bass.
Pleasingly, it’s not all left to electronics.
Whatever the tag, they remain a cult band across Europe to this day.
Madcap’s Flaming Duty, musically, is something of a departure, though
there’s a strong element of restrained grandeur about it all. As leading
purveyors of the ‘ambience’ genre, much copied these days, Froese and
co have made an good album that could be listened to at any time of day
or night, even if the tracks average at the 5-minute mark.
At its heart is a high level of serenity, a real rarity in rock music. As
if to prove a musical point, it opens with haunting blues harp leading to
a spacey sojourn of around seven minutes, accompanied by cultured singer
Chris Hausl, a vocal dead-ringer for Rufus Wainwright.
Upping the pace just a bit, Shape My Sin glides along beautifully,
though there’s a lack of crescendo, segued by floating ballad The Blessed
Damozel, again lacking any kind of defining direction. Hausl rescues the
day on The Divorce, with his singing shining through at every level.
A Dream Of Death is the first really ‘interesting’ piece, containing
restrained dynamics via a brilliant guitar solo around the 4-minute mark.
Things revert to a lazy point once again for Hear The Voice, Mad Song,
Man, Hymn and The Problem
Lake Of Pontchartrain is equally laid back, though the band delve
into a more Celtic mood. Finally breaking the mould, a thrusting dance beat
carries One Hour To Madness, though it drops the pace to allows some
more guitar exploits to surface.
The full list of tracks included are :
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
