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Tangerine Dream's fourth record, Atem, marked the end of an era for the band, as it was the last album they made before before they signed to the Virgin label and discovered sequencers. I find Atem to be a bit weirder, though nevertheless somewhat more digestible than any of their first three albums. It's certainly more accessible than Zeit, which can be an absolutely crushing listen when taken in its 74-minute entirety. Atem is Tangerine Dream's Mellotron album, as the instrument (which, perhaps surprisingly, had not appeared earlier in the band's discography) figures prominently in several long stretches of music. In addition to the Mellotron, there are some unexpectedly aggressive passages on Atem - the opening parts of the long title track and "Whan" come to mind here - which combine to give the album an alien, sinister feel that is more pronounced than the lethargic creepiness that often pervaded previous albums. Atem achieves an effect that is at times more engaging than the Tangerine Dream's previous three albums, yet there are also plenty of passages that unfold slowly and have the same sort of spacey ambience that characterized their earlier work. Like Zeit and Alpha Centauri, I find that Atem's greatest strengths are found towards the front of the album. The title track does a very good job of introducing new sounds and pounding rhythms before being allowed to slide into a familiar spacey drone, and "Fauni-Gena" is an excellent set-piece for Mellotron and synthesizers that is completely unlike anything else the band had yet recorded. I'm less fond of "Circulation of Events" and "Wahn," though "Circulation" is still quintessential Tangerine Dream. The beginning portion of "Wahn" has some shouting noises in it that I personally find more aggravating than interesting, however. If Zeit challenged the notion of what music is, Atem challenges the notion of what Tangerine Dream music is (or was, rather) in 1973. It finds the band remaining as atmospheric and strange as ever, yet the atmospheres produced aren't always the kind of slow-rolling electronic wallpaper that the band had become known for.

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Tracklist:

1.Atem 20:24
2.Fauni Gena 10:45
3.Circulation of Events 5:49
4.Wahn 4:29

Edgar Froese - mellotron, guitar, voice;
Chris Franke - organ, VCS3 synth, drums, voice;
Peter Baumann - organ, VCS3 synth, piano



Part1
Part2

pw: Holbrooki