Tangerine Dream
Germany, 1967–now
Berlin group led by Edgar Froese. Phaedra and Rubycon are built on sequencer patterns in long reverberant textures, establishing the Berlin School, and the band scored many films.
MusicRoots documents 4 artists who influenced Tangerine Dream and 8 artists Tangerine Dream influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.
Who influenced Tangerine Dream?
- Eduard Artemiev — Artemiev's pioneering synthesizer film scoring prefigured and influenced later electronic film composers — critics trace Tangerine Dream's sequenced-ostinato film work (e.g. Thief) back to his approach.
- Pink Floyd — Froese's early Tangerine Dream grew from Piper-era psychedelia — a debt he acknowledged before the sequencers took over.
- Karlheinz Stockhausen — Froese absorbed Stockhausen's electronic school in Berlin — the academic avant-garde behind the Berlin School's cosmic drift.
- Jimi Hendrix — Froese named seeing Hendrix live in 1960s Berlin and London among the events that pulled him from painting into music — the guitar cosmos before the synthesizers.
Which artists did Tangerine Dream influence?
- Michael Cretu — Cretu's atmospheric, synthesizer-driven electronic style descends from the German Kosmische / Berlin School pioneered by Tangerine Dream.
- Space — Tangerine Dream's atmospheric Berlin-School electronics were a direct model for Space's otherworldly, cosmic textures.
- Steve Roach — Roach has named hearing Tangerine Dream's sequencer music the conversion moment that set his path — Empetus is open Berlin School homage.
- Robert Rich — The Berlin School's analogue sequencing is the other documented root of Rich's early synth work.
- M83 — Gonzalez has cited Tangerine Dream's Berlin School sequencing as the synth half of M83's widescreen sound.
- Kitaro — The German cosmic-electronic school around Tangerine Dream is the tradition Kitaro's long synthesizer landscapes came out of.
- John Carpenter — Carpenter has called Tangerine Dream's Sorcerer score a huge influence on his own music — the model for scoring a film with sequenced synthesizers rather than an orchestra.
- Kavinsky — Tangerine Dream's Thief soundtrack is one of the records OutRun works from — the sequenced, nocturnal synth score for a man behind a wheel.