TANGERINE DREAM - Phaedra Phierzig Pharewell

24. April 2014

Tangerine Dream

TANGERINE DREAM - Phaedra Phierzig Pharewell

Vienna, one of the first days of spring after a mild winter. The man who turned music history upside down with "Phaedra" forty years ago is sitting in a venerable café on the Ring. The years have left their mark on Edgar Froese's face, but his unrestrained desire to fable, experiment and provoke has not been harmed. Music was and is never an end in itself for him. Froese wants to get to the bottom of things and put everything into a big world context. To the left and right of his table, diplomats and business magnates palaver about the future of Europe, while Froese lets his gaze wander unsentimentally into the past and future, chatting in a good mood about a great adventure.

eclipsed: "Phaedra" is an album that takes on new form and form in every life situation, environment or era. How is such a plate made?

Edgar Froese: Definitely not by sitting at the drawing board and planning. We did then what we still do today. We prepare them very well by hand. We put ourselves in as meaningful a starting position as possible when we know what we want. But then we let go of all that.

eclipsed: What exactly did that mean in the case of "Phaedra"?

Froese: We improvised and had to make as much as possible out of the relatively limited possibilities of our equipment. We went on stage, and from 1974, when we first used a Moog sequencer, until 1978, when we last did so, there was always the same principle. On the stage stairs it was always E, A or C. That was the only arrangement. The circle of fifths, on which everything was based, took place in one of these three keys. We couldn't leave it either, because it wasn't possible to switch the interval chains between three people interactively manually. Everything that happened had to have a relation to it, or one deliberately chose the dissonances. We developed our own music style within the framework of our technical specifications.

eclipsed: Keyword improvisation. To improvise with melodies and rhythms was one thing, but to improvise with the combination of devices and only rarely know if the technique can withstand the demands at all is quite another thing. Just "Phaedra" is a good example of this. How did you as individuals synchronize with technology in the first place?

Froese: To go in a certain direction, we needed a motive. Nothing happens without motive. One wants to earn money, another wants to become the best guitarist, a third wants to become so famous that he can build a house for his parents. All that's okay. There are a thousand motives. Our motive was, we don't give a shit. As German exotics, we had nothing to order on the international market. Our fool's freedom was infinite. We could do anything, and we did anything. We had the appointment, when the synchronization of three people in the direction of adventure is no longer given, we stop. That's how it was in 1977.

Lesen Sie mehr im eclipsed Nr. 160 (Mai 2014).