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Tangerine Dream: Franz Kafka - The Castle

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Eastgate Records
Released: 2013.12.17
Time:
 68:48
Category: Electronic, Avant-Garde
Producer(s): Edgar Froese
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.tangerinedream-music.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Approaching Snowy Village (E.Froese) - 8:16
[2] Odd Welcome (E.Froese) - 6:30
[3] The Untouchable Castle (E.Froese) - 5:52
[4] The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy (E.Froese/T.Quaeschning) - 4:36
[5] Barnabas The Messenger (E.Froese) - 7:43
[6] Irredeemable Entity (E.Froese) - 7:52
[7] The Implicit Will To Meet Klamm (E.Froese) - 7:09
[8] Desperate Neverending Longing (T.Quaeschning) - 7:33
[9] Surrender And Adaption (E.Froese) - 7:13
[10] A Place Of Mercy (E.Froese) - 6:10

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Edgar Froese - Guitars, Keyboards, Synthesizer, Producer
Thorsten Quaeschning - Keyboards, Synthesizer

Bianca F. Acquaye - Executive-Producer
Harald Pairits - Mastering
Ralf Strathmann - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2013 CD Eastgate 065CD



It's with the breezes of a very melancholic synth that "Approaching Snowy Village" unwinds the rather dark atmospheres of “Franz Kafka – The Castle”. The rhythm which hangs on to it is very delicate. Fighting into a mixture of bass sequences and electronic percussions, it takes little by little a pleasant velocity with more agile and translucent sequencer keys which skip and tumble into their shadows like in the years Poland or in the powerful rhythms of this series. An acoustic guitar offers a very meditative harmonic rhythm which whispers to the ears of breezes became now more strident ghost harmonies. They whistle over this rhythmic agitation, subdividing their tones at the beat of a rhythmic awakening finely drummed while that all softly "Approaching Snowy Village" embrace the gloomy ambiences of its opening. This last musical adventure of Tangerine Dream in the meanders of his series Sonic Poem Series is just as much perfumed by mysticism than the first 3 volumes of the series. We feel that the duet Froese and Quaeschning is well in the saddle and in known territories by plunging into darker atmospheres knitted in very beautiful arrangements and atmospheres deserving of a Dream who survived in all these years of transition.

Set apart the very boiling "Odd Welcome", whose dashing rhythm wriggles on this meshing of sequences, electronic and manual percussions that became the mark of the contemporary electronic rhythms of the Dream, the rest of “Franz Kafka – The Castle” rests on beautiful gloomy theatrical ambiences which are as just melancholic as the melodies, like "The Untouchable Castle" which is a beautiful dark and sober ballad. The slow down tempo waddles dreamily under the caresses of a synth and of its singings so characteristically of Edgar and his Mellotron years. Nasal singings tinted of melancholy and iridescent breeze, flavored by voices and  ethereal mist are transporting this delicate morphic rhythm in the hollows of our listening with a pleasant complicity. These synths to the harmonies clouded of mysticism are the core of the dark charms of "The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy" which is an intense ambiospherical track where the sound effects, the whispers and the tooting, made hoarse by musical filets as symphonic as apocalyptic, awaken souvenirs of The Keep and Legend. It's one of those tracks with a lot of ambiences offered by the gang of Froese since a very long time. These atmospheres and these hollow winds sneak until the introduction of "Barnabass the Messenger" where a keyboard spreads some fleeting chords which get lost in the echo of the winds became voices, like crumbs of bread taken away by the singings of a dark forest. A rhythm hatches out. He is curt and nervous. He sparkles with this meshing of sequences and electronic percussions which characterize the lively rhythms of the last years of TD. Edgar proposes beautiful and very passionate guitar solos of which the tears fade in this broth of agitated rhythm. "Irredeemable Entity" offers a nervous rhythm, worked on a fusion of keyboard and sequencers keys and of which the leaps forge little jerks, just like in "The Implicit Will to Meet Klemm". Both tracks offer a cute melody which is swaying in the sonic decoration and which is clinging to the ear rather fast. But if we listen carefully we hear these choirs of fed vampires humming absent airs. The ambiences are very rich and they caress the indecision of a rhythm which, if keeps its strength softens its depth. I like it but that stays in the field of simplicity. I still prefer the passionate furious "Odd Welcome" and its ride which flees a troop of gargoyles. The arrangements are surprising of realism and the sequencing is just delicious. "Surrender and Adaption" is a very dark track. A slow piece of music and a ballad for depressed with an acoustic guitar and its nostalgic notes which think on a pattern of rhythm fed by nervous manual percussions. The synth covers this dark of a wrapping cloud of melancholy which floats and floats...up until the arms of Morpheus. "A Place of Mercy" is as much darker. The rhythm is deliciously organic with pulsations which gurgle as much as they pound in a sonic environment which transports us to the banks of a swamp teeming of glaucous spectres. Notice the superb arrangements which draw in parallel a finely jerky structure of rhythm.

Does the circle is completed? I'm asking because, without being bad, I have the vague feeling that “Franz Kafka – The Castle” is build around the remainders of the Sonic Poem Serie's first 3 opuses. It's good, nothing more. Set apart the very mesmerizing and mysterious "The Apparently Lunatic Hierarchy", “Franz Kafka – The Castle” brings nothing really creative to this series built around black themes. There are good tracks, as there are also tracks which are lacking originality and which seem to be bringing out of The Island of the Fay and of TheAngel of the West Window sessions. Well, remark that it's not a default in itself. But I would have hoped for more. Maybe next time and as I said, it's good, nothing more.

Sylvain Lupari (January 27th, 2013)
Synth & Sequences



The images that Tangerine Dream put into the head of the unwary are profound. They use sound and scale in the same way that Turner used light to make the most mundane subject alive and vibrant. You find that you want to search in the music in the same way that you are drawn into a picture, finding the detail and marvelling at the changes inspired by changes in the light.

‘Franz Kafka The Castle’ is the latest in a series of ‘Sonic Poems’ and in the words of Tangerine Dream themselves “There is a hidden secret behind this unfinished story of Franz Kafka. THE CASTLE is never meant to be a building as we would expect it. Kafka goes further, much further. The story of THE CASTLE follows a deeper study of mankind and society and is maybe one of the most challenging projects TD came up with.”

Listening to Tangerine Dream has always been about feelings and emotions – they tell their stories in terms of tone, amplitude and pace – and the tracks here all tell stories without words. Take ‘Odd Welcome’: manic aural ‘footsteps’ leading into a techno rhythm with listing keyboards. Close your eyes and you can see the mad butler welcoming the strangers and taking them to his master. The little oddities in the music seem to dive in and out like courtiers getting closer to study the newcomers then backing off as they get closer to the monarch seated on the high dais. The sense of impending threat is underlying all but the pace of the track takes away the fear that should be building up inside you.

This is electronic music, yes, but it is classical in the way that the music is designed to make you think and feel. Rock and Roll it ain’t.

‘The Untouchable Castle’ seems to put you in the place of studying all sides if the edifice and even looking closely at the brickwork and detail but without building a structure – as the title suggests, all artifice and imagery.

Each track can be listened to in isolation but if listened to as a whole piece the effect is much greater – much like the original unfinished novel. Kafka left the reader uncertain whether the structures in the village were real or artifice and played with hidden meanings from the title of the work – in German Das Schloss can mean the Castle but equally could mean The Lock and phonetically it can be taken to mean ‘an end’ – to the names of the villagers and the Council Chairman; nothing is as it seems.
Musically, Tangerine Dream also hide aural clues and stories in the body of the numbers but all the ambiguities are in the mind of the listener.

As ever with Tangerine Dream it is music that works on multiple levels but draws on the listener to truly bring it to life. The subject matter is arcane and difficult but the result is a great listen.

Andy Snipper - 20 Jan 2014
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