SOUNDTRACKS
TEN GREAT SOUNDTRACK MOMENTS FROM TANGERINE DREAM…
Tangerine Dream-scapes.
1 ‘Mae’s Theme’, Near Dark 1987
Founded in ’67 by Edgar Froese, electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream are also prolific soundtrackers. They brought a cosmic romanticism and more to Kathryn Bigelow’s vampirewestern romance. With its misty-eyed melody reaching out over a serene synth bedding, ‘Mae’s Theme’ is the majestic, mournful standout.
2 ‘Abyss’, Sorcerer 1977
A flop on release, William Friedkin’s much-reappraised Wages Of Fear remake draws its wound-up tension and otherworldly intensity from Tangerine Dream’s US scoring debut. Deep, dark and doomy, ‘Abyss’ relentlessly maxes the suspense.
3 ‘Love On A Real Train’, Risky Business 1983
Remembered by most for Tom Cruise’s Y-fronts dance to Bob Seger, Paul Brickman’s none-more-’80s sex-com also features deep, delicate Dream music. Warm, vivid, and tremulous, this neo-Balearic cue, a DJs’ favourite, accompanies the subway clinch.
4 ‘Beach Scene’, Thief 1981
The Dream’s standout cue for Michael
Mann’s crime movie serves an instant hit of early ’80s nostalgia. Dazzling sonics, splashy synth chords and gusty guitars deliver gleaming surface pleasures, all set by Mann to crashing waves on screen.
5 ‘The Silver Seal’, The Keep 1983
After decades in legal limbo, Tangerine Dream’s score to Michael Mann’s WW2 horror recently emerged on the Pilots Of Purple Twilight box set. All ceremonial synths and new-age-y vibes, ‘Seal’ is an eerie keeper. See also ‘Canzone’ for experimental chills.
6 ‘Taking The Park Pts 1 & 2’, The Park Is Mine 1986
Tangerine Dream got their swagger on for this TV movie, starring Tommy Lee Jones as a ’Nam vet. With ‘The Helicopter Attack’, the tense, muscular, eight-minute ‘Taking’ is the key track on a score that perhaps pre-empts Brad Fiedel’s T2 music.
7 ‘Fight At Dawn’, Near Dark 1987
According to Bigelow, Tangerine Dream infused her vampire movie with “a provocative, haunting, mercurial quality”. The flipside of Mae’s lush theme, ‘Fight’ is a fractured exercise in jarring tension, majoring in pulseracing distinction.
8 ‘Betrayal’, Sorcerer 1977
The DNA for ’80s genre synth scores is, surely, encoded in Sorcerer’s other crucial cut. Though Tangerine Dream scored the film sight unseen, the ticking time-bomb heat of ‘Betrayal’ seems made to match. The trailer for The Warriors reused it.
9 ‘Breakout’, Wavelength 1983
As with Firestarter, Tangerine Dream’s music bettered this obscure closeencounter sci-fi. Amid cues that pre-empt the abstract-electro scores to films such as Arrival, the all-too-brief proto-techno bleeps of ‘Breakout’ evoke off-world visions.
10 ‘Exit’, Stranger Things S1 2016
Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s synth-full Things music owes the Dream big time. Surviving Dream members covered it; meanwhile, Dixon/Stein declared their debt by setting S1’s alleyway ruck to this pulsing 1981 cut. Now, where’s that Firestarter reissue?