A documentary about Tangerine Dream, one the foremost exponents of what came to fall under the term krautrock, has been in development since 2014; prior to founder member Edgar Froese’s passing in 2015. Since then the project has evolved with plans for it to become a full-length feature.
To achieve this, Tangerine Dream have started a Kickstarter campaign to acquire rare footage and to license earlier recorded material owned by former labels such as Virgin and Sony. Indeed, alongside Mike Odfield’s Tubular Bells it was the release of Tangerine Dream’s successful hit album Phaedra that helped secure the reputation of the fledgling Virgin record company, as was their first live album Ricochet recorded during a tour of the UK.
The German band formed in 1967, as psychedelia became space rock and they themselves evolved those sounds with their pioneering use of electronics to create experimental music. Largely instrumental, the band would also experiment with vocals, and standard instruments from the 80s on. It was music that not only gave them hit albums and offered them a world stage to perform on but would also see them writing film scores, plus music featured on TV shows and used in video games, through a series of lineups headed by Froese until his death.
The documentary is intended to tell not only how the band formed in Berlin and subsequently developed but also the style and philosophy behind their art. It will include interviews with Froese’s wife Bianca Froese-Acquaye, other members of Tangerine Dream, close friends, artists and famous collaborators, and include previously unpublished footage from Froese’s private archive, and intended as homage to both him and the early era of electronic music.
Among those supporting the Kickstarter campaign is Queen guitarist Brian May who recorded the Sonic Universe album with the band in 2011 at Tenerife’s STARMUS Festival, saying of it: “I’m grateful I have the opportunity to contribute to this piece on Edgar because truly he was something wonderful, and for me it was something wonderful in my life to have an opportunity to interact with him and create together, and I remember him very fondly.”
To find out more visit the Tangerine Dream Documentary Kickstarter Project.
