Tangerine Dream
Recurring Dreams
(Kscope Import)

For over 50 years, Tangerine Dream has given us hundreds of albums ranging from the experimental to the ethereal, spanning genres from krautrock to ambient with a variety of film soundtracks in addition to their prolific discography. Most recently, they provided the soundtrack to the latest Grand Theft Auto game and in 2017, following founding member Edgar Froese’s death, compiled and released Quantum Gate. The album consisted of sketches started by Froese and completed by Tangerine Dream’s remaining members. 

They have now brought us Recurring Dreams, a re-release from 2019, which captures new recordings of many of their classic tracks. The album opens with “Sequent C” off the album Phaedra, which features Peter Baumann on tape-delayed flute, and serves as a captivating introduction. I also enjoyed “Yellowstone Park 2019,” which came from Le Parc, an album of songs influenced by various parks around the world. The delicately plucked synth melodies laid over lush pads seem to sustain for days and create a vivid sense of place; you can almost hear the open sky and sprawl of the land and feel the sunlight on your face.

Other standout tracks include the hauntingly beautiful “Los Santos City Map” and “Tangram Set 1 2019 (Excerpt),” a hypnotic piece from 1995’s Tangram, which explored a longer format broken into two “sets” and had the band experimenting with more of a New Age sound. Overall, Recurring Dreams is a masterfully assembled collection which does an excellent job spanning the band’s career and serving as a solid introduction for new listeners. Whether you prefer the sparsely melodic or the swirling synthscapes, there’s something here for everyone.