Rubycon

In January 1975 three men walked back into The Manor, a country house in Oxfordshire. Thirteen months earlier they had made Phaedra in the same rooms without knowing what it would turn into. This time they knew. Froese said later that, unlike Phaedra, the creative flow never broke. The electricity did. The Manor's supply kept cutting out, sessions stopped while synthesizers were wired to generators, and Franke's Moog, fed by an unsteady current, would sometimes play sequences nobody had asked for. A year before it had been the cold that caused the accident. Now it was the power. And once again they built the record on top of it.

Where it sits in the history of music

Phaedra had come out in February 1974 and reached number 15 in Britain, which for an instrumental record by a German band with no single and no airplay was a great deal of money. Froese said where it went. Almost all of it went into equipment. The sequencers could be better fitted out, though most of the modifications had to be custom-built. He had orchestral instruments recorded by the BBC for his Mellotron. Franke brought in a modified Elka organ, Baumann a prepared piano and an ARP. In other words, the money Phaedra made was spent on making Phaedra properly.

They recorded in January 1975 in the same house, the same studio. The engineer was Mick Glossop. The record came out on 21 March.

It is the middle record of the three that define the Virgin years. Phaedra before it, and in December of the same year the live album Ricochet. Put the three side by side and you can see what this one is. Phaedra is the record that first put the sequencer at the centre. Ricochet is the one that took the sequencer onto a stage and got as close to rock as the band ever came. Rubycon is the one in between, made indoors, where the same three people pushed the same method as far as it would go. In Digital Gothic Paul Stump called it a refinement of its predecessor taken to an acme of excellence, and probably the best album the band ever made. A great many long-time listeners say the same.

Tracklist

Two pieces, that is all. One per side, almost the same length. Where Phaedra gave you three short tracks on side two to catch your breath, this record closes that window. Apart from turning the disc over there is nowhere to rest. The title is the Rubicon, the river Caesar crossed and could not recross. A year earlier the band had carried a sequencer to the bank. This time they cross.

"Rubycon Part One", 17:18, as it goes

"Rubycon Part Two", 17:35

Side two begins a few nautical miles past where side one ended. The gong sounds again, and a VCS 3 sweeps across the night water like an air-raid siren. Then the choir arrives, human voices held on Mellotron tape. In 1975 the NME called what floods out of the speakers here a technological massed choir. A lot of people hear Ligeti's choral music in it, and they are not wrong. The sequence enters earlier than on side one, at around four minutes. After that, backwards guitar and organ streak past, and gongs put through effects break like waves. The end is an epilogue, organ and synthesizer whispering down to nothing. The landscape after the river.

Franke gave the band's music one word in the tour programme that year. Liquid. Flowing from one point to the next, no big cuts, no breaks, like water. Sometimes a waterfall, but no stop. The drop on the cover, the night sea on side two, the gongs like surf. For thirty-five minutes this record does exactly what he said.

How to listen

• On headphones, at night. The siren and the choir on side two are only half there in daylight.
• Do not cut side one short. If you skip ahead because the sequence has not arrived after seven minutes, you have skipped the biggest decision on the record.
• Put it on and do something else. Walk, or drive at night. This is not music you stare at.
• I first heard this kind of music by chance, on the radio, as a teenager. Something about it pulled at me and I could not say what. It was not the kind of thing you heard often, so it was years before I went looking for it properly. For anyone who arrives that way, Rubycon is the record that answers first.

What happened next

The album reached number 10 in Britain, five places above Phaedra and the highest this band ever climbed there. In December of the same year came Ricochet, assembled from the European tour, with more percussion and guitar than the two records before it and closer to rock. So Rubycon is where this method went furthest inside a studio. After it the band went out onto the stage, and then towards melody and film. It never came back here.

The one track to send a friend

Send "Rubycon Part Two". It starts sooner than side one, it has the choir, and it has an ending. Then add one line. This record was made in an English country house where the power kept failing, on generators, and now and then the Moog played by itself. Nobody knows which bit that is.

Where to get it

The remaster in the 2019 box In Search of Hades is the one to have. It comes with a bonus "Rubycon (extended introduction)" mixed by Steven Wilson. The 1995 Virgin "Definitive Edition" was the standard for a long time and is still everywhere. In November 2025 Cherry Red released a 50th anniversary 5CD edition with the 1974 Rainbow and 1975 Royal Albert Hall concerts attached. If you buy only one copy, buy the LP. On this record the act of turning it over after side one is part of the piece.

AmazonTangerine Dream on CD and vinyl, including the 2019 remaster.DiscogsEvery pressing of Rubycon. The 1975 UK first pressing is the one with the Roger Dean label.