TANGERINE DREAM – RICOCHET LP – Nr MINT UK  PROG AMBIENT

Tangerine Dream – Ricochet
(Virgin Records  1975  V2044)
Matrix No’s: A4/B1 – UK Pressing

Sleeve in Very Good condition
– some crease marks

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from the odd light pop/crackle)

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member. Drummer and composer Klaus Schulze was briefly a member of an early lineup, but the most stable version of the group, during their influential mid-1970s period, was as a keyboard trio with Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann. Early in the 1980s, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann, and this lineup, too, was stable and extremely productive.

Tangerine Dream’s early “Pink Years” albums had a pivotal role in the development of Krautrock. Their “Virgin Years” and later albums became a defining influence in the genre known as New Age music, although the band themselves disliked the term.

Although the group has released numerous studio and live recordings, a substantial number of their fans were introduced to Tangerine Dream by their film soundtracks, which total over sixty and include Sorcerer, Thief, The Keep, Risky Business, Firestarter, Legend, Near Dark, Shy People, and Miracle Mile.

Ricochet is the first live album by German electronic music group Tangerine Dream. The album was released in 1975. It consists of two long compositions mixed from taped recordings of the England and France portions of their fall 1975 European Tour. The sound of the album is similar to the group’s other “Virgin Years” releases, relying heavily on synthesizers and sequencers to produce a dense ambient soundscape. Ricochet utilizes more percussion and electronic guitar than its predecessors, Phaedra and Rubycon, bordering on electronic rock. The principal innovation on the album is its use of complex multi-layered rhythms, foreshadowing not only the band’s own direction in the 80s, but also trance music and similar genres of electronic dance music.

Much of the raw material for Ricochet, in particular part 2, was recorded at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, London, during Tangerine Dream’s live performance there in October, 1975. The original, unedited version of this performance can be heard in set 3 of The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1. No other source concerts have so far been identified.

After the Top 20 placings for Phaedra and Rubycon, Ricochet fared less well in sales terms, spending just four weeks on the UK album chart (all editions of the now defunct Guinness Book of British Hit Albums erroneously state only two), reaching number 40. In recent years, however, Ricochet has become one of the most popular Tangerine Dream albums.

In the original release of Ricochet, the sound of two hands clapping can be heard at the beginning of the second track. This sound has been edited out in some of the re-released versions of the album, notably Virgin’s 1995 “Definitive Edition” CD release, presumably being regarded as noise.

Track listing

Personnel

• Edgar Froese – keyboards, guitar
• Peter Baumann – keyboards
• Christopher Franke – keyboards, drums