Additional information
Tangerine Dream: Edgar Froese (vocals, guitar, organ, bass); Steve Schroyder (vocals, organ); Chris Franke (flute, pianoharp, synthesizer, percussion). Additional personnel: Udo Dennebourg (vocals, flute); Roland Paulick (synthesizer). Recorded at Dierks Studios, Cologne, Germany in January 1971. Originally released on Ohr. Includes liner notes by Julian Cope, excerpted from Cope's book "Krautrocksampler." All tracks have been digitally remastered. The second album by electronic innovators Tangerine Dream is often credited as the first to be called "space music." Heavily influenced by 1960s psychedelia on its debut album, ELECTRONIC MEDITATION (1970), Tangerine Dream quickly distinguished itself as an ensemble that took great pains to create interesting sounds by running everyday objects (such as a cash register) through a tape recorder. The progression to synthesizer music on this album marked a transition for the band, and this effort truly put them on the map. Composed of just three songs, ALPHA CENTAURI was recorded primarily with flute, electric guitar, organ, and synthesizer. The weeping and moaning guitar and organ in "Sunrise in the Third System" eventually lifts off, giving way to "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola," where a tweeting and twirling synthesizer sounds like electric raindrops hitting water. The drum solo in the same song is unexpected, an improvised bit of jazz in an otherwise unearthly place. The final piece, "Alpha Centauri," describes a merging of the natural world with another dimension, as flute mingles with oozing electronics and eventually fades away.
Reviews
Q (12/02, pp.133-4) - 4 out of 5 - "...1971's ALPHA CENTAURI is classic krautrock..." Mojo (Publisher) (6/96, p.112) - "...[TANGERINE DREAM'S] brooding stillness, their extended compositions that imperceptibly shift emphasis, their concealment behind a wall of glowing synthesisers, have all contributed to modern music's obsession with anonymity, ambience and the romance of the keyboard..." Record Collector (magazine) (p.100) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he title track, with Udo Dennebourg's processed voiceover, is a chilly highlight."
