- Earlier this week, Krankbrother hosted two evenings of psychedelic electronics inside Islington's Union Chapel. Despite the death of Edgar Froese, the Tangerine Dream founder and longest-serving member, in 2015, the band has carried on, releasing several records—including an album, Quantum Gate—and continuing to tour since Froese's passing. The occasion carried an eerie temperament. The church became more than a venue, hosting a pilgrimage for superfans to hear electronic eulogies. Last night, the band's current lineup—Thorsten Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss and Hoshiko Yamane—interpreted various ideas and musical sketches left by Froese, in addition to material from the 150-plus albums he made with the band.
This wasn't the first major concert Tangerine Dream have played inside a church. In 1974, the band invited 5,000 fans to Reims Cathedral, a venue with a capacity of 2,000. "It was a terrible situation," Froese later told Melody Maker. "People couldn't move, they had to piss up against the walls. You can imagine the mess by the end of the concert. What's more, we got the blame for it!" Pope Paul VI ending up issuing a public decree, banning Tangerine Dream from ever performing in a Catholic church anywhere in the world.
But this time around, the concert was solemn and respectful, paying homage to a pioneer. The room's cavernous acoustics served their ambient pieces well, wafting through the pews like incense. Though the band recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, there's still something novel about their mountain of live gear onstage. We often forget how young electronic music is. In the '70s, Tangerine Dream looked like an alien outfit, using spaceship technology to play music from another world. In 2018, they still look strange and exciting.
Prog music, psychedelics and religion actually have a lot in common. Tangerine Dream, in particular, aimed to explore higher (or at least, other) consciousness and metaphysics through abstract sound shapes, pointillism and repetition. Their music facilitates the wandering mind: a backing track for the constant ebb and flow of thought. They have a knack for large-scale crescendos that gallop towards triumphant conclusions.
But as with any hackneyed depictions of the future, the impact often falls flat. The projected visuals—fast-motion shots of Broadway in New York, Matrix-style number streams and "trippy" iTunes visualisers—were basic, wanky computer graphics. At one point, I genuinely thought the computer was on screensaver. There were some mawkish points in the music, too, from sickly key changes to synth-shredding solos. Many of the patience-testing 20 minute jams just weren't fun to watch, and sounded like a sprawling mess.
The show culminated in a touching tribute to Froese, his image projected above the pulpit to dulcet piano loops. There was something sweet in seeing a church full of 60-somethings in trilbies and Pink Floyd T-shirts getting lost in futuristic synth jams. This is a generation of nerds-turned-dreamers, searching for spiritual salvation through psychedelic sci-fi. But perhaps Richard Barbieri, the night's support act, put it best as he pointed to his pile of knackered equipment: "I'm still not the oldest thing on stage."
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Here And Now