Ricochet

On 23 October 1975 Tangerine Dream played the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, south of London, near the end of that autumn's British tour. Beside the stage a four-track tape machine ran: one channel from each of the three men's rigs, and one microphone on the audience. Three days later those tapes were at The Manor, the country house in Oxfordshire, and the band spent the first days of November rebuilding the tour there. Franke said later that this was the first album they had a real concept for, and that with sixteen tracks it was the first where they properly got to grips with overdubbing. The title is Ricochet. A thing that bounces. Sound that left the stage, hit a studio wall, and came back.

Where it sits in the history of music

1975 was this band's year. Rubycon came out in March and reached number 10 in Britain, and on the back of it they toured France and Britain in the autumn. Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Orléans and Reims in September. Sixteen British dates in October, opening at Coventry Cathedral, passing through Liverpool Cathedral and York Minster, on to Croydon, ending in Bradford. A year earlier the Catholic Church had closed its doors after Reims. The Church of England's cathedrals did not mind.

The sleeve says one thing: recorded live, autumn 1975, in France and Britain. No dates, no towns. The sources agree that a large part of side two comes from Croydon on 23 October. They do not agree on how much of it is the stage as it happened. An account drawn from the box-set notes has most of side two as Croydon. The fan archive Voices in the Net has about ten minutes from the stage, the rest rebuilt in the studio. Side one was recorded at The Manor, its opening synthesizer line re-played from the Croydon opening. Mixed by Mick Glossop.

It is the last of the three records that make up the Virgin years. Phaedra put the sequencer at the centre and Rubycon pushed it as far as it would go. Ricochet took the same method onto a stage to see what would happen. What happened was rhythm. There is more percussion and more guitar than on the two records before it, and the sequencer on side two is where this band came closest to rock. In 1986 Franke said it was probably his favourite of their albums, because it proved that when they made music live it always came out different.

Tracklist

Two pieces. Seventeen minutes on side one, twenty-one on side two. This time the lengths differ, and those four extra minutes shift the record's weight onto the second side. Printed timings vary slightly from pressing to pressing; these are from the 1995 CD.

"Ricochet Part One", as it goes

Side one begins dark. A low synthesizer line fills the room, and anyone who knows the first two minutes of Phaedra will recognise the same fog. What comes next is different. Franke plays drums. Percussion struck by a human hand had never been this far forward on one of their records. And Froese's electric guitar steps to the front for the first time. What to listen for is whether the sequencer and the drums keep step with each other. When a human beat sits on top of a machine pulse this music suddenly sounds like a band. The Mellotron appears as strings near the start and as choir near the end. Side one, then, is the sound of a stage rebuilt inside a studio. Only the opening line was based on what they played at Croydon.

"Ricochet Part Two", twenty-one minutes

Side two opens with a piano. A descending figure played by Froese, and it is not a stage piano. It was recorded in the studio on an old upright that lived at The Manor. Layers of Mellotron flute settle over it. All of that is a feint. Once the sequencer arrives, twenty-one minutes run in one direction. What to listen for is not the sequence but Franke's hand on it, shifting the pattern a little at a time. On stage it changed every night, and what survives on this record is one night's hand. An atonal interlude in the middle splits the piece into two acts. It ends on flute and a choir chord. One more thing. The original pressing had a pair of handclaps at the start of side two, setting the tempo. The 1995 reissue removed them.

How to listen

• You can start with side two. This is the only Virgin-era album where that is allowed. But skip side one and you will not know why the drums are a shock.
• On headphones, at night. The room caught by the audience microphone disappears in daylight.
• Play it near somebody who thinks this music is background. Watch their head come up when the sequencer starts to drive.

What happened next

The album reached number 40 in Britain and stayed four weeks, a long way down from Rubycon's number 10. What lasted was not the chart position but the direction. Rhythm had moved into the centre of the album, and the band went that way. In October the following year came Stratosfear: guitar, harmonica, grand piano, melodies you could hum. The era of building records from sequencers alone ends there. Ricochet sits on the threshold. The last chapter of the pure sequencer years, and the first record on which the band began to sound like a band.

The one track to send a friend

Send "Ricochet Part Two". It opens with a piano, so anyone can walk in, and once the sequencer arrives you no longer have to explain why you love this band. Then add one line. The first sound on this live album, the piano, was never on a stage. It is an old upright in a country house.

Where to get it

The version in the 2019 box In Search of Hades is the one to have. Ben Wiseman remastered it, and Steven Wilson's new stereo mix from first-generation masters is included separately. The 1995 Virgin "Definitive Edition", remastered by Simon Heyworth, was the standard for a long time. But that edition removed the handclaps at the start of side two. To hear the record as it first appeared, claps and all, you need a 1975 LP.

AmazonTangerine Dream on CD and vinyl, including the 2019 remaster.DiscogsEvery pressing of Ricochet, from the 1975 UK original V2044.