Review: Tangerine Dream at The Orange Peel

Fans of Tangerine Dream have been waiting more than a decade for the electronic group to return to Western North Carolina. Prior to its Sept. 11 show at The Orange Peel, the German ensemble’s last Asheville performance took place at Moogfest in 2011.

Yet in the case of a long-running act like Tangerine Dream, founded in Berlin in 1967, the excitement of another show can be tempered by a potentially impertinent question: In what way is this actually the same group that helped shape the progress of electronic music with landmark albums like Phaedra (1974) and Rubycon (1975)?

Edgar Froese, the band’s founder and only consistent member, died in 2015, and another three artists from its 2011 lineup are no longer part of the group. But the musicians now performing under the mantle of Tangerine Dream made a strong case that they continue to preserve an essential legacy. 

The through-line from Froese to the present is Thorsten Quaeschning. The synthesist joined in 2005, spent a decade learning under the master, and received Froese’s blessing to continue on as bandleader. He was joined in Asheville by violinist Hoshiko Yamane and keyboardist Paul Frick, members since 2011 and 2020, respectively.

Quaeschning stood with magisterial calm in the center of the Orange Peel stage, a steady, black-clad figure behind his bank of four keyboards. His presence reminded me of nothing so much as an orchestral conductor, and I think the comparison is apt: Like a symphony retains a reputation for a certain style, even as its personnel constantly changes, Tangerine Dream has kept a unique approach to arranging sound.

The band’s watchword is “patience.” Its members take joy in the texture and structure of synthesized sound, and they give those sounds ample room to swell and evolve over time. As the vibrations grow and fill the spectrum from rumbling bass to ethereal treble, they take on an almost physical presence — the music hangs in the air like an abstract mobile by Alexander Calder, twisting slowly to reveal new facets of itself.

That’s not to say that Tangerine Dream has stayed frozen in time. Frick’s pulsing rhythms feel drawn from more contemporary electronic dance music and DJ traditions. BBC has called one of his other projects, Brandt Brauer Frick, “concert hall compositions for the clubbing generation.” Meanwhile, Yamane’s subtle, heavily processed violin work wouldn’t be out of place on a bedroom art pop release.

But those influences are clearly subordinate to Quaeschning’s leadership and preference for monumental soundscapes. At times during the Peel set, he was content to pull back from his keys and just let the orotund bubbles of synth wash over him, waiting for the perfect moment to make another small adjustment.

It’s worth noting the band’s lighting design here as well. Instead of the frenetic lasers and strobes of much contemporary electronica, Tangerine Dream employed overlapping cones of color through a thin layer of smoke. The effect was sculptural, making me feel as if the music and lights together were pieces for shared contemplation at an art museum.

The performance closed with an entirely improvised session, full of keening violin and arpeggiated synthesizers. If the rest of the concert was like walking through a sculpture gallery, this was like sitting in a workshop with the musical sculptors chiseling form from the bare marble of an agreed-upon key. (That key, announced Quaeschning, was E minor, “because this room sounds amazing in E minor.”)

Seeing the band at work made me eager to revisit its formidable discography — over 100 live and studio albums — and keep tabs on its future. The first album under the new lineup, Raum, was released in 2022 to generally favorable reviews. Who knows where the Tangerine Dream tradition will progress in another 50 years?

(Photo by Daniel Walton)