Tangerine Dream - Cyclone

Criminally underrated TD masterpiece

I'm still trying to figure out what's up with all the bad reviews for this one: TD has experimented with various instruments in the past (cello quartet on 'Zeit', for example) so an experimentation with vocals (voice is an instrument) shouldn't be all *that* suprising.

'Bent Cold Sidewalk' is a sleeper classic, with a powerful melodic three-chord motif as its main theme coupled with mesmerizing synth lead breaks and a classic synth/flute instrumental break in the middle which is TD at its finest, before returning to the original motif and progressing to a stunning conclusion. 'Rising Runner to Endless Sender' rocks as well, with another powerful main theme, before closing with a 20-minute monster. Fantastic and underrated 70s TD classic. November 11, 2008

Two plus Two

By the time of this 1978 release, TD was Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke, with a music industry that was poised for some tremendous change in the next several years.

In an attempt to deliver a new artistry to an already hefty catalog, Steve Jolliffe (vocals, flute) and Klaus Krieger (drums) were enlisted for the nearly 38 minutes of this "controversial" album. It was the first attempt to add vocals to the soundscape, with Jolliffe on Bent Cold Sidewalk and Rising Runner Missed By Endless Sender, with a traditional TD delivery on the elegant Madrigal Meridian.

A vastly underrated album, though it was a direction TD would only flirt with in the coming years, it showed a growth in vision and an attempt to nudge fans into a new age of music. November 3, 2008

A+

For me, this is one of my top 10 albums of all time that has had a major musical influence on my own work. I am nothing more than a hobbiest musician but I think it rates up there with Sgt Pepper, Dark Side, Strange Universe Romantic Warrior, Liquid Tension-II, Rossini etc.
I LIKE IT ALOT.. June 17, 2008

Could try harder; a sadly flawed album

There are those who claim that the best thing about Tangerine Dream's 1978 album "Cyclone" was Edgar Froese's painting used on the cover! Of course, there are those who don't even like that, and the new releases of the disc don't feature it, so...

Now, though, with the benefit of over 20 years of hindsight, it can be seen that "Cyclone" was just one experiment to try to determine the future direction of a group suffering greatly from the loss of one of its most inspirational members.

There can be no doubt that Peter Baumann's precipitate departure from the trio in 1977 deprived Tangerine Dream of a highly important and enormously creative influence. (It is a sad fact of artistic life that the most creative forces are often also the most destructive!) "Cyclone" was the soul fruit of the collaboration between the two remaining members of the band (Edgar Froese and Christoph Franke) and two others: percussionist, Klaus Krieger and flautist, Steve Jolliffe. This latter brought to the album not only woodwind playing (in the form of flutes, clarinets and cor anglais) but also another, entirely new element for the band: lyrics. (Add dramatic chord of your own choosing at this point!)

Many commentators have attributed the unpopularity of "Cyclone" to Steve Jolliffe's fairly outlandish lyrics and vocal style but I think that this assessment is most unfair. After all, they feature in less than a third of the album in total and for the most part fit in well with the material around them. True, there are times when Jolliffe's rather brash delivery is at odds with established Tangerine Dream leanings. But his wordless and vocoded passages are entirely consistent with previous TD practices and mesh seamlessly with the synthesised sounds. In addition, his detractors say, his lyrics are often pretentious or just plain meaningless. Well, most of the pop industry does quite well out of pretentiousness, thank you very much! And why is music with 'meaningless' lyrics any less meaningful than music with no lyrics at all? Think about that one for a bit. Answers on anything that suits you... (used banknotes of any denomination preferred...)

No: if there are weaknesses to be identified in the music presented on "Cyclone", it has to be the overall lack of clear direction for the album, coupled with the unimaginative and often just plain boring percussion lines which underpin some of it (especially around the vocal lines). Klaus Krieger's skills are entirely wasted in these standard pop percussion figures, which are entirely superfluous to the TD mix. Personally, I suspect that the real reason for this album's lack of popularity with the established Tangerine Dream fans of its time is that those fans had come to think of the band (quite erroneously) as a pure synthesiser trio - something that set them apart from other bands of the time. Suddenly, with "Cyclone", Tangerine Dream were a quartet, complete with 'standard pop' drummer and vocalist. And basically just like any other boring old pop group. Couple this with the fact that other artists like Brian Eno and Ultravox were breaking new ground with their forays into synthesised sounds and one can understand that "Cyclone" was a grave disappointment indeed at the time.

So: turning away from idle (and pointless) speculation, what does the music actually sound like? The album opens with one of its highlights: a beautiful passage for vocoded voice (à la Pink Floyd "Animals") as an introduction to 'Bent Cold Sidewalk'. This 13-minute track is in three sections of roughly equal size: the first section features the aforementioned much-maligned lyrics of Steve Jolliffe, here integrating well with rich, supporting synth textures (although the trite drum line is rather irritating). The middle section is mostly instrumental (there is a patch of wordless - or at least unintelligible - voice towards its end) and introduces a change of mood, with Jolliffe's lilting flute and woodwind contribution harking back to the days of "Alpha Centauri". With a strong sequencer pulse and a wandering cymbal-based percussion line, this is probably the strongest (and by far the most beautiful) music on the album. A drum burst brings this central section to a close, though, reprising material from the opening section. Jolliffe's vocal contribution here does begin to jar, and he has certainly outstaying his welcome by the end of the track. (The track's ABA form is another departure for TD, who usually continue to introduce material right through to a track's ending.)

The following 'Rising Runner Missed by Endless Sender' is a fast and furious 5-minute romp of a work, through which Jolliffe shouts and screams, sobs and sighs his way, with his own particular brand of surreal lyrics. He is kept company by a screaming lead synth line over a throbbing bass synth pulse as well as by some fairly innocuous drumming from Krieger.

The final track, 'Madrigal Meridian', is a much larger scale work. At 24 minutes long, it originally occupied the whole of the second side of the vinyl disc. Stylistically, the music here harks back to a variety of earlier TD works (and has no vocals at all!). It starts out with some 'cosmic' style electronic ambiences, through which a throbbing synthesiser pulse finally hammers its way, forcing the sound to dissolve into soaring string textures. Suddenly, a strong sequencer pulse erupts and a typical TD synthesiser melody of delightful simplicity takes over. The first half of this track is very reminiscent of both "Stratosfear" and "Ricochet", with its catchy tunes and driving rhythms, coupled with some fabulously uninhibited guitar-playing from Edgar Froese. After almost 20 minutes of this delightful stuff, the material gradually disintegrates both melodically and rhythmically, until a series of crashing chords introduce a short lyrical section for synthesised harpsichord and strings, and a brief interlude for flute. The track's peaceful (but unresolved and therefore ultimately unsatisfying) conclusion is spoiled further by some truly cringe-worthy intonation problems - something of a shame, as it leaves the listener finally feeling that this album really could have been very much better than it is.

Worth a visit if you're at all curious but Tangerine Dream have done much better than this in their time. June 2, 2008

Brilliant

Cyclone, is absolutely a great album, in fact Cyclone and Phaedra are my favorites

Bent Cold Sidewalk, Madrigal Meridian & Rising Runner Missed By Endless. All 3 are just brilliant. Some may not agree with me, however that depends on the taste.

Raj
July 6, 2007

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