Tangerine Dream – Atem

#TangerineDreamTuesday Week 4: ATEM.

Closing out the Pink Years, it's Tangerine Dream's last album for Ohr Records! If Zeit was a journey through the vastness of space, then this album marks our first steps on an alien planet...

Most reviewers describe Atem as a more accessible album than Zeit, but I'm not sure I agree! Some of the ages within are even more stark, without the space effects and shifting drones of the previous. Take, for instance, the title track. The first six minutes is a world away from Zeit, a momentous, almost medieval fanfare with pounding drums and - making its TD debut - the Mellotron! And suddenly it all falls away, shifting into an eerie quiet made of organ and VCS3 loops.

It's a trend that continues through Fauni-Gena and Circulation Of Events, the former sounding almost like a dry run for Froese's Mellotron-driven Epsilon in Malaysian Pale. Compared side-to-side, I find Zeit a more "busy" listen overall - except of course for Wahn, a gleefully puzzling oddity of tribal-esque chants, eventually swallowed up by a melancholy Mellotron.

Notably, Atem was TD's first hit in the UK, thanks to Radio 1's John Peel keeping them in regular rotation in 1973. The resultant wave of mail orders was enough to pique the attention of Virgin Records, and with TD's mounting frustrations with Ohr, a ten-year contract was quickly signed. Atem thus marks the end of TD's Pink Years, a bold period of burgeoning experimentation, and - rather than a mere stepping-stone to the commercial success of the Virgin Years - a brilliant era in its own right. Not bad at all, Tangerine Dream!

This is a gatefold cover.
Is there any particular reason why that is not designated?

this is an awesome album! the first time i listened to it was when i was out in the cold at my brother's sledding race

Atem is often regarded as their best album from the Ohr label, and I can't find much argument in that. It's more accessible than Zeit, that's for sure, in that it's just a single disc with one side-length cut and three somewhat shorter cuts. While this isn't the first TD recording with Mellotron (1972's Ultima Thule, released before Zeit, was), this was the first where the Mellotron was now more permanent in the band's gear (at least until the late '70s). I ed when I first bought this, as a two-for-one package deal on Virgin Records with Alpha Centauri (I then was lucky to acquire the German original on Ohr) being disturbed by the artwork. Playing it, I was simply blown away! I loved those big Mellotron ages and big drumming from Chris Franke that opens the title track, and I love how it builds to this intense climax before it mellows out big time with this hypnotic pulsing, and near the end, what sounds like really sinister sounding helicopters. "Fauni-Gena" is Edgar Froese's piece, sounds to me like a blueprint for his 1975 solo album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale. Full of what sounds like a tropical jungle, and just absolutely loaded with Mellotron. Tron strings, brass, and flute, it's all over it, but has a more sinister overtone than on Epsilon. "Circulation of Events" features this really strange droning sounds that really trip me out, while "Wahn" features a lot of screaming and startling percussion, before it ends with a nice Mellotron theme. Great stuff, though, like their other albums from Ohr, it's not an easy listen, but this album, as well as the other three they did for Ohr have been favorites of mine for years.