Day 213: Tangerine Dream – Atem
The other day when I was writing about Ataraxia’s The Unexplained, I was saying that I haven’t found much music that scratches my itch of wanting entertainment that’s spooky but not necessarily scary. I’m settling in for an evening of reading a spooky book, so I’m making it my mission to find more instrumental music within the spooky not scary-category that’ll make my reading session more atmospheric but won’t make my nervous system think I’m at risk.
Album cover courtesy of Ohr
Luckily for me, the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library has a list on their website of instrumental albums to soundtrack scary reading, so I chose something recommended by the author: Atem by Tangerine Dream. Tangerine Dream has been on my list of things to listen to for a long time, I’ve liked the songs I’ve heard but I don’t actually know anything about them, so much so that I wondered if the there is one Tangerine or if it’s a group.
It turns out that Tangerine Dream is an electronic music group from Germany founded by Edgar Froese in 1967. The group is still going, but Froese is the original member and they’ve had a varying cast of characters across the years. Froese was an art student who became fascinated by electronic music and became a pioneer within the genre, building his own custom-made electronic instruments and recording everyday sounds to make music.
Released in 1973, Atem was the group’s fourth album, and it heralded a new level of fame for the group, largely because of the enthusiasm of British Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who championed the band and named Atem his album of the year. He even sent the band a letter talking about how much people liked them, saying “in my job as a disc-jockey on the BBC’s miserable Radio 1 I have been playing a lot of your music and that as a result I have had more letters about these records than about any other records I have played during the past six years.”
The album is named after the German word for breath, and it chronicles the formation of life in the universe in a suitably creepy way. The 20-minute opening track starts with what sounds like a piece of medical machinery that lets you hear a heartbeat. The second song, “Fauni-Gena”, sounds like it could accompany a dreamy ballet sequence that’s a little bit off-kilter, while “Circulation of Events” is maybe the creepiest song on the album, with a darker feel to it. The closing song “Wahn” is the most intense of the bunch, sounding almost primitive with its wordless yelling and drums.
I think the ideal way to listen to this would be sitting by that little window thing on the ISS, but barring that, the best option may be just laying down in a dark room with your eyes closed. It’s not really music you have to ponder, more music that you have to experience – I liked reading to it, but I had to put the book down to lay down and focus. It’s not exactly a spooky or menacing album, but there is something disconcerting about it. It’s not not enjoyable, but it’s not an easy listening experience either.
It’s a difficult one to rank. I enjoyed listening to it and will listen to Tangerine Dream again. I could also imagine that their music would be quite the experience if you were a little bit impaired, although with this album, it might not be in a positive way. I liked it, it’s interesting, I’m now very open to exploring more Tangerine Dream. 8.5/10. Also, fun fact, the baby on the cover is Edgar Froese’s son, who grew up to become a member of Tangerine Dream.