Hyperborea

by

Tangerine Dream

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This album has grown with me a lot through the years. Initially I bought the LP, but I think the CD version really does it justice. Hyperborea is totally synth-based, and there is a strange concept in it: The concept of Death! For, how else can one reconcile Hyperborea, the mythical land of eternal happiness with the 'tomb' culture of Ancient Egypt? This is, by the way, my own personal interpretation, and no TD fan has to agree with it. Edgar Froese once stated that every listener should feel free to draw their own conlusions about the themes of the TD music. The music of H does reflect, however, a strange duality: The first track, quite upbeat and pleasant, industrial sounding towards the end, has a definitive Mid-Eastern flavour, and develops a theme that TD revisited later in the song Valley of the Kings, from Lily on the Beach. The awesome composition Sphinx Lightning is a dark marathon through desolate lands and twilight areas. It begins with a heavy, ominous theme, develops into a rhythmical and sophisticated techno, then enters a strange, lingering atonic scale and, after a pure electronic percussion passage, concludes with a glorious (resurrection?) theme. Hyperborea is certainly not a melodic album (the title track is the only exception). In fact, I think that this is the least melodic CD of all the Schmoelling albums. The synth sounds selected by the band are harsh, unreal, unlikely. The first track, for example, offers a weird combination of exotic and industrial sounds. Cinnamon Road is one of the most aggressive and vibrant songs TD ever recorded. Thrilling tune! The title track, Hyperborea, on the other hand, is so majestic and beautiful, that some TD fans bought this album just for this song. Personally, I do not favor any song over another in this album, simply because every one of the four tracks that consist H has its own personality. I do find, however, Sphinx Lightning the most interesting of all. The vast majority of techno and industrial music today pales in comparison with this 1983 TD album! There is soul and heart here; there is mysticism and spirituality, not just a pathetic manipulation of wave files and all that nonsense that is considered by some today's 'progressive' or 'experimental' music.