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It was either 1983, 1984, or 1985. _Contemporary Keyboard_ magazine had recently done a feature article on a German electronic music trio called Tangerine Dream. I found one of their albums in stock at a record store: "Tangram", which was released in 1980. I bought the album, took it home with me, and performed the "first listening" ritual as I had always done: with headphones.
I was wowed.
Most electronic music I had been exposed to before this was mostly collections of sounds that weren't exactly connected melodically. TD changed that. It showed me what was possible with synthesizers and sequencers. The music was divided into two album-side-long suites: "Tangram Set 1" and "Tangram Set 2". Each of the sets/suites were comprosed of several short pieces connected together. (Or to use a musical term, one segues into another.) A few of the sections had repeating bass lines and chord progressions, with either a guitar or keyboard playing a solo line over it. TD is renowned for their ostinato patterns, which were performed via sequencers or tape loops.
I still remember the night I recorded a cassette tape of this album, with the help of college friend Jim Ramberg.
One of its members, Chris Franke, went solo in the late 80s, and recorded music for movies and TV, including the music for all of the episodes of "Babylon 5".
And this is the type of music I'd love to write and perform. I have a partially completed piece, called "International Orange", which is written in the style of Tangerine Dream. I'm planning either 7 or 8 parts. So far, only part 2 has been realized, way back in 2002.
Give the entire album a listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2XEH_8PLts
