''Ricochet'' is the seventh major release and first live album by German

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

group

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...

. It was released, on the

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

label, in 1975. It consists of two side-long compositions mixed from studio recordings and the UK portion of their August–October 1975 European Tour. The sound of the album is similar to that of the group's other "Virgin Years" releases, relying heavily on synthesizers and sequencers to produce a dense, ambient soundscape, but is much more energetic than their previous works. ''Ricochet'' uses more

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

than its predecessors ''

Phaedra Phaedra may refer to: Mythology * Phaedra (mythology), Cretan princess, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus Arts and entertainment * ''Phaedra'' (Alexandre Cabanel), an 1880 painting Film * ''Phaedra'' (film), a 1962 film by ...

'' and '' Rubycon'', and borders on

electronic rock Electronic rock is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music, featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s, when rock bands began incorporating electronic instrume ...

. The main innovation on the album is the use of complex, multi-layered rhythms, foreshadowing the band's own direction in the 1980s and

trance music Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes. Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minute ( ...

and similar genres of electronic dance music. According to the official ''In Search Of Hades'' boxed set, Part 1 was entirely recorded at

The Manor Studio The Manor Studio (a.k.a. The Manor) was a recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England, north of the city of Oxford. Overview The Manor and its outbuildings are Listed building#England and ...

in England. The opening synthesizer line was based on the opening of the show at the

Fairfield Halls Fairfield Halls is an arts, entertainment and conference centre in Croydon, London, England, which opened in 1962 and contains a theatre and gallery, and a large concert hall regularly used for BBC television, radio and orchestral recordings. Fa ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

, but was rerecorded for the album. The rest of Part 1 was entirely created in-studio by the band from several improvised sessions. Most of Part 2 was recorded at Croydon during Tangerine Dream's live performance there on 23 October 1975. The original, unedited version of this performance can be heard in set 3 (Part 2) of ''The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1''. No other concerts were recorded for the Ricochet album. The piano solo at the beginning of Part 2 was recorded by Edgar Froese on an old

upright piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

at The Manor Studio. Immediately after the Croydon concert the band brought a four-track recording of the show to The Manor. Each band member's equipment rig had been recorded on a single channel, and a fourth channel was used for an audience mic to capture crowd noise and overall ambience. The band selected two roughly eight-minute sections from the performance and edited down the individual parts performed by the band members in those sections, mixing each bandmember's parts in and out and panning the tracks to simulate a stereo field. A brief vocal-effects section serves as a bridge between the two live excerpts, which were extracted from different sections of the Croydon performance. After the Top 20 placings for ''Phaedra'' and ''Rubycon'', ''Ricochet'' fared less well in sales, spending four weeks on the UK album chart, (all editions of the now defunct ''

British Hit Albums ''British Hit Singles & Albums'' (originally known as ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles'' and ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums'') was a music reference book originally published in the United Kingdom by the publishing arm of t ...

'' erroneously state only two), reaching number 40. In the original release of ''Ricochet'', the sound of two hands clapping can be heard at the beginning of the second track. This is the final bit of applause before the music started, and was possibly left as a buffer before the start of the piece. This sound has been edited out in some of the re-released versions of the album, notably Virgin's 1995 "Definitive Edition" CD release, being possibly regarded as noise.

Track listing

Personnel

Peter Baumann Peter Baumann (born 29 January 1953) is a German musician. He formed the core line-up of the pioneering German electronic group Tangerine Dream with Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke in 1971. Baumann composed his first solo album in 1976, whi ...

– keyboards, organ, synthesizers, mellotron, flute * Chris Franke – keyboards, sequencer, synthesizer, drums *

Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the group ...

– keyboards, synthesizer, piano, mellotron,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

Singles

7-inch promotional singles were issued in France and Australia, featuring excerpts from the full album: * "Ricochet (Part I)" – "Ricochet (Part II)" * "Excerpt from Ricochet"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricochet (Tangerine Dream album) 1975 live albums Tangerine Dream live albums Virgin Records live albums