Tangerine Dream – Rubycon

Mine's perfect. Very flat, great record, love the green and the cover sleeve.

#TangerineDreamTuesday Week 6: RUBYCON.

Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, my personal favourite from the classic lineup. Having developed their Berlin School style in Phaedra, Rubycon sees Tangerine Dream perfecting it.

Unearthly chimes and dreamlike flutes begin the album. Amidst spacey effects, the flute eventually drops away and the Moog makes its presence known - and we're off! There's an incredible build in intensity throughout Part I, as Franke adds more and more notes to the Moog bass sequence, alongside a truly momentous clanging stab (processed organ?) that recurs through the track. Part II continues in this vein, with reversed guitar and organ washes playing over a constantly mutating Moog bassline, eventually closing out the album with flute over drawn-out organ chords.

The two tracks on Rubycon are two sides of the same coin, showcasing a more complex compositional style than the improvisational Phaedra - each track is restless for new ideas, but incorporates them without splitting into individual movements ala their later work on Tangram, Logos etc. In retrospect, it's surprising to see how quickly this period of TD zips past. Of their 70s albums, only Phaedra and Rubycon seem to embody their classic Berlin School sound; between Ricochet and Stratosfear, we see a push toward more melodic songwriting (the latter increasingly baroque) and away from the hypnotic sequencing that dominates this album and the previous. But Tangerine Dream have never been one to rest on their laurels, and it seems only right that - unlike their looping Moog basslines - they were wary of repetition.

It’s pretty good. Takes a bit to get into that TD groove. Side 2 is a little short . Def some solid synthwave but some of it is a little meh.

Classic Tangerine Dream… along with the album Phaedra, Statosphere, Ricochet….some incredible ambient, electronic haunting soundscapes on wax. The legendary George Piros was the mastering/cutting engineer for this pressing as many other tangerine releases around this time.

All kinds of Wünderbar
If you like electronic music, dance music anything really get this into your ohrs

Only a slight dishing to mine. Noticed too that Chris' surname is spelled as "Franje" on the label.

Inherited this from my uncle, was blown away when I put this record on with headphones. Curious to know where this pressing was printed. I’m thinking either or England

Interesting fact: the version I have has a "Made in Czech Republic" sticker on the back and has a better DR of 12db than the original version included in the In Search of Hades box - which has a DR of 11db for the entire album and WEB version too.
They are allegedly the same CD, including the face CD and contents.
Moreover, the defect described in 1 track, between 10:16-10:21 minutes, is minimal, maybe not even noticeable. I rate the whole thing even better than the first CD release.

A real mixed bag...
The cover is sturdy and from what I can an accurate repro of the original (except for the barcode).
The record itself is probably the most 'bowled' I have seen, with a distinct raised rim all around side 2. But it does play, even though on side 2 the gap between the disk surface and the plastic on the cartridge is so small as to not be visible to the naked eye. Amazingly the cartridge just manages to avoid scraping it.
The sound is good. There are two distinct places where the sound briefly drops, and brief pops here and there.
So it's badly manufactured , but not as bad as it could be, ie acceptable. It was half the price of many new LPs, so there's less to grumble about. Music like this is obviously far more suited to CD, and I guess when you buy an LP these days you know what to expect.

Very good, good quality and is well presented. Pleased with this one. Sounds great.