TANGERINE DREAM: Booster VII (2015)

“I'm going to miss you, Edgar. Well, it already started”

1 Tamago Yaki 2015 (2015 Remix) 6:07

2 Industrial Life 5:54

3 Diary of a Robbery 5:34

4 Chilly Moons 8:55

5 Rotcaf Neila 8:24

6 Pilgrims to Elysium 9:15

7 The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy 4:35

8 The Gate of Saturn 8:30

9 Dnammoc Su (Neat 2015 Remix) 5:56

10 The Light Cone 2015 (2015 Remix) 6:53

11 Parallel Worlds 4:29

12 Polar Radius (2015 Remix) 5:43

13 Heart Throb 4:34

14 A Matter of Time (Red Canyon 2015 Remix) 9:14

15 Rim of Schiaparelli 6:15

16 Barnabas the Messenger 7:42

17 Burning the Bad Seal 5:16

18 Silvery Ice Lake 6:02

19 Shadow and Sun 7:55

20 Morning Sun (2015 Remix) 3:27

21 Le Combat Des Épées (Director's Cut) (2015 Remix) 16:53

Eastgate ‎| 072 CD

(CD/DDL 147:46) (V.F.)

(Electronic Rock)

It's over! The end of an era! Here is the very last compilation of the Booster series. I always liked these compilations, even if at the beginning I questioned the artistic character of the project. Afterward I let myself charmed by the main idea behind these compilations which is to introduce the greenhorns to the music of Tangerine Dream while giving to the aficionados some rare, unreleased, remixed and new music. And throughout the seven volumes of this series, the goal aimed was always respected, even if sometimes the new tracks were not really new and even if the remixes had this knack of scratching my patience. And I don't know why, but here I find that this BOOSTER VII is bloody better done.

It starts with a new version of Tamago Yaki 2015, a track that we find on the Kyoto released in 2005. It's an album loaded with music forgotten in the vaults which was composed by Edgar Froese and Johannes Schmoelling around 83. I had found this album good, nothing more. A little bit disappointing, considering the impact of Schmoelling's departure on the direction of Edgar's band. But no matter, here it sounds quite good. The arrangements make very Froese of the Stuntman years, while the moods flirt with the era of The Keep. Always from the same album, Industrial Life is more dynamic, but leaves me a little bit cold. It's a lot of noises for not much. But surprisingly, after some listening (especially in my car) it flows pretty nice. Chilly Moons is a delicate ballad which is also the fruit of this collaboration. The wild race of Diary of a Robbery (oh do I hear the skeleton of Silver Scale here) comes from GTA5: The Cinematographic Score which is a strong album. Bad Seal is a good track also taken from this album where the play of sequences and the sequenced rhythms plunges us in the Franke/Froese years. I never liked Chandra: The Phatom Ferry Part II but inserted here the ambiospherical ballad that is Rotcaf Neila appeals me a little more. That's what makes the strength of the Booster series. Everything becomes different, as if by magic! And guess what? I also quite liked this surprising remix of Dnammoc Su (Neat Mix). The melody which roams in the background throw me a heck of an earworm for days after. Pilgrims to Elysium is a new composition and a very good one of which the peculiarity is to cross marvelously the bridge between the Schmoelling and Haslinger years. A little more dynamism and it would have given quite a whole result. The track grows ceaselessly but without ever overflowing really its minimalist road. The effect of violin on the other hand embraces the ethereal atmospheres of the more contemporary years. Afterward we are entitled to Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy, pulled out from the Franz Kafka: The Castle album. It's a short intense track filled with strong atmospheres while Barnabas the Messenger is rather average. Let's say that there are far much better tracks on this album, making of this selection a debatable choice, except if it's for Edgar's six-strings solo.

Gate of Saturn doesn't need any more presentation. It's an inescapable track in the most recent years of the Dream. The Light Cone 2015 closes the first CD with a beautiful remix of this piece of music pulled from the very good Pinnacles, a wonderful album solo that Edgar signed in 83. This track is at its third version and the work is fine here. Its key point? It gives this taste to hear again this all-time EM classic! We find Parallel Worlds in The Keep and its presence seems to serve much more a hidden introduction to the surprising Polar Radius which is a very interesting new track from Froese and Schmoelling. A track which plunges us back into the ambiences of Flashpoint and The Keep with a cheerful finale which throws us literally in the golden years of the Dream. This is as unexpected as very good. Heart Throb and Shadow and Sun are two tracks written by Edgar Froese and Ulrich Schnauss which let glimpse immense possibilities for the Quantum Years. It's a good mixture of e-rock where the EDM approach floats in structures which bicker constantly between ethereal phases and others more boiling ones. There are Jerome's perfumes in Shadow and Sun, the best, according to my tastes, of these two tracks here. That's always pleasant to hear Matter of Time (Red Canyon Remix), and this no matter the flavor that we give to it. Its remix doesn't manage to destroy this delicate morphic lullaby which hesitates to lull and to perturb our idea of sleep. Rim of Schiaparelli? It's a powerful track pulled out of the brilliant Mars Polaris album; one of the very good albums of the TDI era. This I have to write about one of these days. Silvery Ice Lake is also a new track which wears the seal of the Sonic Poem Serie ambiences with very dark, very melancholic atmospheres, surrounding a rhythm which grows gradually without ever exploding. Other real newness, Morning Sun is a beautiful very gloomy ballad which follows an always aggressive tangent. That reminds me the kind of the Melrose years. But it fits very well here. In this big envelope of diversity which surrounds the 21 secrets of this Booster, it flows very well. Le Combat des Épées (Director's Cut), written by Thorsten Quaeschning was always my favorite of the Jeanne d'Arc album. This reorientation offers additional minutes but modifies not at all the structure of the music where Picture Palace Music's aromas float all around it. It's a good Electronic Post Rock, like Thorsten Quaeschning likes so much to describe his style music.

Go get this without hesitation! This BOOSTER VII is quite a sonic and a musical cream where all the flavors of Tangerine Dream, periods 83 to13, float with this irresistible desire that the fans from the very beginning have to blubber as to cherish. Damn Edgar, I am going to miss you!

Sylvain Lupari (August 29th, 2015) *****

SynthSequences.com