Tangerine Dream – Atem

The last album of their "pink years" and one of their most experimental (just listen to "Wahn") before the sequencers took over.

Why on earth is this blocked from sale??? Surely it was a legit licensed issue via Polydor in 1973?!?

It's all been said about Atem but the bonus CD is a brilliant piece of improvational electronics, reminding much of Zeit but more moving, like and endlessly mutating organism. Absolutely beautiful, haunting and true avant garde "kosmische" music. It's worth purchasing this edition for this bonus CD alone. Nice booklet too.

this is an awesome album! the first time i listened to it was when i was out in the cold at my brother's sledding race

Following Zeit must have been a tricky prospect: once you've taken a freakout psych rock outfit and stripped it down to abstract drone, almost entirely devoid of melody and rhythm, where do you go next? Instead of moving forwards, or even backwards, Tangerine Dream decided instead to go sideways. The title track re-incorporates the heavy percussion found on the first two TD albums, which is then used at varying points throughout the rest of the record. The overall feel is considerably different, however: percussion is used in a more textural way which is less about driving the music forward than making it darker and more imposing.

Elsewhere, the record follows similar themes to Zeit, with slow moving organ drones and whooshes, pulses and bleeps from the VCS3. The main difference is the addition of the mellotron, an instrument that immediately became an integral part of the Tangerine Dream sound. Throughout much of Atem, its looping string sound is as obvious as the organ, adding a richer, more orchestral feel to the music. Edgar also uses it in a more conventionally melodic manner than listeners will have been used to from the band; indeed, parts of the album look ahead to the group's more accessible period as melodic ambient pioneers.

Atem is often regarded as their best album from the Ohr label, and I can't find much argument in that. It's more accessible than Zeit, that's for sure, in that it's just a single disc with one side-length cut and three somewhat shorter cuts. While this isn't the first TD recording with Mellotron (1972's Ultima Thule, released before Zeit, was), this was the first where the Mellotron was now more permanent in the band's gear (at least until the late '70s). I remembered when I first bought this, as a two-for-one package deal on Virgin Records with Alpha Centauri (I then was lucky to acquire the German original on Ohr) being disturbed by the artwork. Playing it, I was simply blown away! I loved those big Mellotron passages and big drumming from Chris Franke that opens the title track, and I love how it builds to this intense climax before it mellows out big time with this hypnotic pulsing, and near the end, what sounds like really sinister sounding helicopters. "Fauni-Gena" is Edgar Froese's piece, sounds to me like a blueprint for his 1975 solo album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale. Full of what sounds like a tropical jungle, and just absolutely loaded with Mellotron. Tron strings, brass, and flute, it's all over it, but has a more sinister overtone than on Epsilon. "Circulation of Events" features this really strange droning sounds that really trip me out, while "Wahn" features a lot of screaming and startling percussion, before it ends with a nice Mellotron theme. Great stuff, though, like their other albums from Ohr, it's not an easy listen, but this album, as well as the other three they did for Ohr have been favorites of mine for years.

Another masterpiece from the early years of TD.Hypnotic,majestic,heavy percussion,space wind, and trumpet blasts reach a crescendo and then stop to reveal a mystical,ambient,spacey atmosphere.Mysterious drones and soft percussion with sounds from outer and inner space create this timeless soundscape.Influences from Ligeti's "Lontano" can be detected on this piece but taken to another level.
Echoing voices from the void are heard on "Circulation of Events";a track that should have been much longer.The Spirits of Nature are to be found on "Fauni Gena",while"Wahn" is again inspired by Ligeti-this time by "Adventures" and Nouvelles Aventures" with strange speech sounds and inflections.