Feb 21: T is for Tangerine Dream

An alphabet of bands and artists as a series through February. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.

Tangerine Dream is a band whose line-up has changed repeatedly over the years, but which continues to this day, and will continue indefinitely because its about the music and the idea and not the particular people who make up the band at any one point. The Wikipedia page explores all the musicians who have contributed to the project. I first saw them over 40 years ago.

It was founded by Edgar Froese and other key musicians for some years were Christopher Franke and Johannes Schmoelling.

The current line up is made up of the multi-instrumentalists Thorsten Quaeschning, violins from Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick - the most recent addition.

Their White Eagle album from 1982 has a nicely geographical front cover. The deluxe version has some excellent bonus tracks as well. This is one of my favourites.

I was very pleased to catch them playing a 50th anniversary concert based around their album 'Phaedra' at the Barbican in 2024. 

The 2nd half of the concert (after an hour long performance of the main album as a session) was full of hits and started with a storming 'No Happy Endings'. This is on the soundtrack to the video-game Grand Theft Auto V.

Here's a live performance of Madagasmala.

 

There is also this video featuring the last live performance by Edgar Froese in June 2014 and a cracker of a song 'The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green' featuring two of the current line-up.

Thorsten Quaeschning released an album with Steve Rothery of Marillion as a duo called Bioscope in 2025. It's very good also.

One of my favourite tracks played live is called The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green. This was often the final track played at gigs and this recording is particularly special as it was the final time that 

In January 2026, they released a recording of a special 50th anniversary concert at the Barbican where they played their album Phaedra plus a selection of other tracks. It's in my collection. I was there at the event!

Discography

There isn't room to put the full discography of albums as they have released over 100 I believe... 

Here's just a few ... from older albums to more recent ones...

AI generated so there will be some errors.

The penultimate line-up played a concert at the opening of a new concert venue, and the resulting gig is available free of charge here. It's wonderful...

What 'T' does your algorithm throw up? 

Let me know in the comments

And also your Tangerine Dream memories....