VIA PRESS RELEASE | Phaedra is one of Tangerine Dream’s most successful and acclaimed albums and this limited edition 5CD/Blu-ray box set is a deep-dive celebration of one of the most important and pioneering electronic albums of all time.
To be released on 18th April, Phaedra 50th Anniversary Edition is a six-disc 50th anniversary boxed set featuring a remastered original album mix, along with two discs of out-takes from the recording sessions. The complete concert at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in June 1974 (the band’s debut live appearance in the UK) and a Blu-ray disc featuring Steven Wilson’s 5.1 Surround Sound mix. The box also features an illustrated book with a new essay by Tangerine Dream authority Wouter Bessels.
Originally released by Virgin Records in February 1974, Phaedra spent 15 weeks on the UK charts upon its release. Recorded at The Manor studios in November 1973, it was the band’s first album for Virgin and vitally, it was the first record in which they used a sequencer. This is seen as the moment the band created their signature sound, and this development in their music production would go on to have a huge impact and influence on electronic music to this day and had a fundamental effect on “Kosmische Musik”—a term coined by Tangerine Dream founding member Edgar Froese which came into regular use before “krautrock” and was preferred by some German artists.
Phaedra’s groundbreaking use of synthesizers and sequencers created a lush and immersive soundscape that was unlike anything else at the time. Its success came from word-of-mouth and self discovery, despite the record receiving no radio play support upon its original release, it integrated itself into cultural society and helped to popularise the concept of electronic music as an art form and showed that it could be just as, if not more so, complex and sophisticated than any other forms of music.
