Tangerine Dream - Poland

Di internet ada situs yang khusus diperuntukkan bagi penggemar lagu-lagu progrock, yaitu 'Progarchives'. Situs ini semacam kitab suci bagi siapapun yang ingin mendapat info tentang band-band prog atau album-albumnya, atau bahkan berita yang berkaitan dengan dunia per-prog-an. Info atau review album-album prog ini ya bersumber dari para pendengar lagu-lagu prog sendiri, yang kemudian di submit ke Progarchives. 

Ada aturan-aturan tertentu memang supaya review kita bisa masuk ke sana, misalnya reviewnya harus lengkap, bukan cuma "album ini bagus" atau "albumnya jelek banget", atau bahkan menghina pendapat orang (tentu saja). Nah, sebagai seorang 'prog listener' tentunya saya tertarik untuk mensubmit review-an saya. Untuk kali yang pertama, saya coba review album live Tangerine Dream tahun 1984, yaitu Poland - The Warsaw Concert. Apesnya, berkali-kali saya tidak bisa mensubmit review ini, karena servernya error terus katanya. Ok deh, supaya sayanya tidak penasaran, saya posting di sini dulu aja.

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By the year this album was made, Tangerine Dream, (TD) has been a well known band in movie industry. Their contribution in many movie soundtracks has quite significantly change their musical direction, from a very experimental - full of haunting sound in their 70s album, to a more straightforward dynamic sound. This 1984 live album is one of their landmark in terms of commercial success and fame.

Opened by 'Poland', a 22 minutes song first introduced by an announcer speaks in Polish. Then the audience applause marks the beginning of a very catchy sequence generated loop. For me the song actually made its climax halfway through it, when a dynamic sequence of the loop merges with Edgar Froese's guitar. Afterwards, the song abruptly halts and and moves to a solemn end.

'Tangent' starts with another catchy heroic bass sequence, before a punchy bass line that would probably kick off the the whole audience. Stunning. As in 'Poland', the second part of the song differs from the first one. In 'Tangent', this is marked by a light jazzy popular melodies, their 80's trademark.

Third track, 'Barbakane' is quite easy to forget, because i just sense that it's like listening to a movie soundtrack. But, this album is beautifully finalized by another lengthy piece 'Horizon'. This crafty 20-minute epic starts with abstract sounds, before some touches of beautiful melodies enters the passage. Then, halfway through the song, it moves to another lovely haunting melodies, before climaxing in their stylishly famous 70s bass sequence. Definitely, this track is stunning!

Above all, this is a another great live album from TD, after Ricochet and Encore. If 'Horizon' is the only song in this album, I would probably give 5 stars, but because I couldn't enjoy 'Barbakane' and only halves of 'Tangent' and 'Poland', then 3 stars is fair enough.

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Hmm, rasa-rasanya 3 stars (skala 5) agak kurang pas ya, mungkin nanti saya ubah jadi 4 stars deh kalau sudah bisa masuk ke servernya.

UPDATE (February 3, 2011)

after days of trying, this review finally appeared in progarchives. http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=392563

more and more reviews are about to come :)