Tangerine Dream | WHITE EAGLE | CD

Personnel: Edgar Froese (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer); Johannes Schmoelling (keyboards, synthesizer).
Audio Remasterer: Simon Heyworth.
Liner Note Author: Mark Prendergast.
Recording information: Belrin (01/1982); Berlin, Germany (01/1982).
Despite the pundits who insist that anything post-ZEIT is scarcely worth a listen, Tangerine Dream's later recordings for Virgin still represent the band's watershed years. WHITE EAGLE, recorded in the waning '80s, brings back to life the startling sounds that crept up in such past achievements as PHAEDRA and FORCE MAJEURE.
The 18-minute-plus "Mojave Plan" is nothing less than fascinating. Whistles erupt from the void, eventually coalescing around a slowly thumping synthesizer croak, while Christopher Franke fires up the sequencers around Froese and Schmoelling's riveting electronic chirrups, chimes, and cordials. It's a heady stew that brings to mind prairies brimming with non-human life and man-machines gasping for breath in desert oases amidst the disinterested chatter of mutant arachnids. "Convention of the 24" contains one of the Dream's more inebriating sequencer motifs, and the closing title track is a luxurious bath in simmering waters of liquid electronics and slippery beat smears. WHITE EAGLE remains one of TD's late-period triumphs.

• Format: CD
• Genre: New Age / Meditation
• Genre: World Music
• Released: 05/17/1994
• Released: 5/17/1994