Edgar Froese

Guardian Music “Tangerine Dream founder Edgar Froese dies” http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/23/tangerine-dream-founder-edgar-froese-dies
Alex Young “R.I.P. Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream founder dead at 70” http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/01/r-i-p-edgar-froese-tangerine-dream-founder-dead-at-70/
Joe Lynch “Tangerine Dream Founder Edgar Froese Dead at 70” http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6450793/tangerine-dream-edgar-froese-dies
Sean O'Neal “R.I.P. Edgar Froese, founder of Tangerine Dream” http://www.avclub.com/article/rip-edgar-froese-founder-tangerine-dream-214287

タンジェリン・ドリーム*1のオリジナル・メンバーであるエドガー・フローゼ*2が肺血栓塞栓症*3のため、ウィーンにて死去。享年70歳。オリジナル・メンバーというか、タンジェリン・ドリームというのは、殆どエドガー・フローゼのバンドであった。
『ガーディアン』の記事から少し引用；

Froese founded Tangerine Dream in Berlin in 1967 and was the only constant member. Early in their career the group were associated with the scene known in the UK as “krautrock”, and their debut album was comprised of tape collages, but as they developed they had little in common with the “motorik” sound of Neu! and Harmonia, the challenging experimentalism of Faust or the free-flowing improvisations of Can. Instead they developed a spacey, synth-driven sound that was profoundly influential on electronic and ambient music.

Sean O'Neal氏の記事から；

Froese was an art student who arrived in West Berlin in the late 1960s, amid a rising generation of young experimentalists who were inspired equally by psychedelic rock, surrealism, and rapidly developing electronic technology. Froese and his compatriots in exploring music and multimedia would soon come to be known as the “Berlin School.” While their counterparts in the Dusseldorf School such as Kraftwerk, Can, and Neu! would develop the more percussively rock-derived, motorik rhythms into the Krautrock that would eventually give way to techno and synth-pop, the spaced-out Berlin School created the lengthy soundscapes that presaged ambient music, trance, drone, and new age.

Froese collaborated with Berlin School colleagues like Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze on some of the earliest Tangerine Dream recordings―most notably its 1970 debut album, Electronic Meditation, a tape collage that pieced together free jazz-inspired rock, found sounds, and wows and flutters from Froese’s homemade instruments.

Joe Lynch氏の記事から；

Froese founded Tangerine Dream in 1967 Berlin and was the group's most consistent member through a number of lineup changes over the decades.

The band's early albums were an essential part of Germany's burgeoning "Krautrock" genre in the late '60s and early '70s, whcih included Kraftwerk, Neu! and fellow soundtrack-crafters Popul Vuh. Unlike the extremely propulsive music of some of their peers, Tangerine Dream's electronic music was less about mimicking the rhythms of urban landscapes and more about evoking cosmic, space-y landscapes.

1974's Phaedra and 1975's Rubycon were incalculably essential works for the ambient and electronic music scenes. While their studio albums were far from chart-toppers, their unique sonic soundscape captured the attention of The Exorcist director William Friedkin, who tapped them to score his 1977 film Sorcerer.

1970年代、「クラウトロック」と呼ばれた独逸のロックは、（少なくとも私にとっては）知る機会はあまりなかった。その中でも、タンジェリン・ドリームは（音楽性の全然違う）クラフトワーク*4とともにちょっとはメジャーだったといえる。とはいっても、初期の作品は知らず、知っているのは、今引用した最後のパラグラフで言及されているPhaedra、Rubycon、日本では『浪漫』というタイトルがつけられていたStratosfear、それから映画『恐怖の報酬』のサントラくらいしか聴いていないのだった（汗）。ところで、1978年だったか、クメール・ルージュ支配下のカンボディア、所謂民主カンプチア*5の実態を紹介したユーゴスラヴィアのドキュメンタリーがNHKで放映されたのだが、そのBGMにタンジェリン・ドリームのStratosfearが使われていたのが凄く印象的だった。

PHAEDRA

ルビコン(紙ジャケット仕様)

ストラトスフィア(浪漫)(紙ジャケット仕様)

恐怖の報酬 [VHS]

Sorcerer O/S/T

再び『ガーディアン』の記事；

Despite Tangerine Dream’s influence on electronic music, Froese himself shied away from the label. “We’ve never ever created ‘electronic music’,” he told the Quietus in 2010*6. “Such music emphasises the intellect and is normally produced as a pure studio event. Working with synthesisers is a completely different approach to electrified music. We’re open to all kinds of modern music developments and wouldn’t be interested in the locked up situation you’re into while working in a musical ivory tower. Of course, I love the guitar a lot, Motown stuff as well as modern progressive rock music. Finally it’s all a crossover within all musical landscapes and if you’ve never stopped learning from others, you have always creative inputs for your own work.”

衆知のことではあるけど、Tangerine Dreamというグループ名はビートルズの”Lucy in the Sky with Diamond”*7からの引用。

*1:http://www.tangerinedream-music.com/ See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_Dream http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%89%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0

*2:http://www.edgarfroese.com/ See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Froese

*3:See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_embolism http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%99%E8%84%88%E8%A1%80%E6%A0%93%E5%A1%9E%E6%A0%93%E7%97%87 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pulmonary-embolism/basics/definition/con-20022849 http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Pulmonary-Embolism-%28Japanese%29.aspx

*4:See also http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070608/1181274931 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091116/1258338600 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100831/1283228156 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100924/1285325863

*5:See eg. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100110/1263125320 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100728/1280280055

*6:Ben Hewitt “Our Band's Not Electric: Edgar Froese From Tangerine Dream Interviewed” http://thequietus.com/articles/03878-edgar-froese-tangerine-dream-interview

*7:See also http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091003/1254541059