50 Years Of Phaedra - Live At The Barbican - Tangerine Dream

The Tangerine Dream album Phaedra is 50 years old as of 2024 when this recreation was performed at London's famous Barbican centre

It is difficult not to overstate the significant, historical and cultural impact that thus album had on the evolution of Electronic Music, As this particular album (their first for Richard Branson's Virgin Records) was truly groundbreaking as was the world's first introduction to sequenced moog synthesiser playing, It was also extremely difficult as the technology that was available was completely new and untested in a recording environment.

This meant the original recording was literally recorded piece by piece when the technology was compliant and allowed for recordings to be captured at that precise m9ment in time.

Much of these tales are already well known but it is worthwhile remembering that substantial difficulties that Tangerine Dream struggled against to bring this landmark album to completion, this was their fifth album and their first in their long association with virgin, A relationship that endured until the mid 1980's and one that saw a succession of important albums that have defined how Electronic Music has grown 8n its impact on music over the years, With pretty much all of what you hear nowadays either having its roots in or has been a influenced by the groundbreaking efforts of this particular group of musicians, Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke & Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream.

This album seeks to take the template of the original Phaedra album and replicate it here albeit 8n a slightly altered form by playing the album in reverse sequence and calling Phaedra the Hippolytus Session parts 1 to 8 with a track entitled Phaedra to sum things up, Now I'm not Musicologist so I will struggle to compare this version to the original fully, However I will say that it most certainly retains and captures the spirit of the original recording pretty succinctly.

In addition the album also has performances of 12 other Tangerine Dream classics from their virgin or Blue period albums and also from their first post Edgar Froese album Raum,

The mood and sound of the album is both reverant and respectful, as you would expect from a Barbican audience, there are several spoken sections frOm the band expressing their gratitude to the crowd for the warm reception they received both for when the album was originally released in February 1974 and also for the support for the band throughout the years since, England was very important for Tangerine Dream as England were the first to really embrace the new style of music that Tangerine Dream were creating, so the relationship between the band and audience was one that was viewed very positively by the band.

This set is a fine document of a very special and significant evening in the long and successful career of Tangerine Dream.

The sound is every bit as fine as you would expect, the packaging and booklet are equally as informative as you would wish for and Phaedra remains a timeless classic of ambient sounds and patterns that still sounds magical and otherworldly some 50 years after its initial release.

A truly special evening I am so glad it was captured for posterity.

Info here: 50 Years of Phaedra: At The Barbican https://share.google/eYAmAjRcw3YTVzNKC

Author John Wenlock-Smith Tuesday 17th February 2026