【The End of the World Song】Orange Dream gone missing

Press: The article was published on "Pingtai" in 2017, and they ended in 2019. I found it recently and put it here as a souvenir.

Tangerine Dream, the pioneering German electronic music band, has spanned more than half a century in the music world and is well-known in Europe and the United States. It has released more than 100 albums, but this is the first time to perform in Hong Kong.

The band was formed under the leadership of Edgar Froese in 1967. The members often remained three people. There were frequent personnel changes over the years. Among them, the cooperation with Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann established the band's initial shape. In the late 1970s, Baumann left the group and was replaced by Johannes Schmoelling. , was the band's most mature and prolific era. In the 1990s, Edgar Froese's son Jerome joined the band, and the band became dominated by father and son, with female members appearing for the first time at the same time. Thorsten Quaeschning joined in 2005 and Jerome left the band the following year, again led by Edgar Froese. Japanese female violinist Hoshiko Yamane joined in 2011, when the band expanded to six. By 2014, three of them had left the team and Ulrich Schnauss had filled in to form a four-man team. Unfortunately, Edgar Froese died of illness in 2015, and the rest of the three joined after the millennium. They may not have a deep relationship with the band, but the three still intend to inherit Edgar's legacy. Under the coordination of Edgar's wife Bianca Acquaye, they decided to Let the band go on.

The "Orange Dream" performed in Hong Kong this time can be said to have changed beyond recognition, so there are many early followers but they feel that they are not interested in the vicissitudes of life. Things have changed, and the mood and enthusiasm have all changed, which is understandable, and I once had this idea. And I have seen it twice in Toronto in the early years, once in 1986, when the band was in its heyday as a trio; the other was in 1992, when the four-member group had its first female members. That feeling is very special, very different from a typical pop or rock concert. Those electronic piano sounds are soft, filling every corner, like water, we are like in a big pool, like fish, floating and sinking, leisurely, with the change of lights and the speed of music, let the head relax and play to the fullest Imagining the space, using brain waves to communicate with the electronic notes on the stage, the feeling is the only one, and each concert of "Orange Dream" can be very different. After many years, and at the end of my death, I still decided to enter.

The poster this time states that it is The Quantum Years - In honour of Edgar Froese, just to tell everyone that it is the new era of "Orange Dream". Familiar music fans know that the Orange Dream has a long history and changes in personnel, so it is divided into several categories. It is identified by a year, such as The Pink Years, The Virgin Years, The Melrose Years, etc., and is generally identified by the record company. But as for The Quantum Years, it was because Edgar became interested in quantum physics in recent years and turned it into music. He had communicated with the team members in detail before his death, and he had also recorded some recordings and even released them in EP form. The reason for the continuation of "Tachibana Dream" is that the team members want to fulfill Edgar's last wish. "Orange Dream" stepped on the bandstand thanks to another German avant-garde electronic music predecessor Klaus Schulze. Originally, he was going to attend a concert in Poland, but he was forced to cancel due to health problems. He suggested "Orange Dream". "Dream" instead of the seat, and this is the first time the band has performed as a trio after Edgar's death, and Poland may be the place with the most "Orange Dream" supporters outside of Germany. The performance was very successful, and it also gave the members confidence. With the increase, other performance opportunities have been arranged one after another, and this is the first time the band will perform in Hong Kong.

In the venue, the most obvious difference is the size of the harpsichord. It used to be called the keyboard mountain of the harpsichord pile. Three people are three mountains. The audience only sees their heads, and communication is almost always through music. These days harpsichords are lighter, smaller and more powerful, so their whole person is revealed on stage. Especially the female team member Hoshiko Yamane, who is mainly in charge of the violin, so many times she just stands in the middle of the stage and waits, and occasionally presses a few times on her Apple computer. There is no need to question whether they are all live performances, this kind of electronic music must have some program control. The last time I watched it in Toronto, it was listed on the show. The first half of the music was 43:28 in length. If it was all live, how could it be so accurate. And this kind of pure music performance, everyone's feelings are different, with the cooperation of live lighting and multimedia images, what everyone sees and connects with is different. And the images are mostly abstract and conceptual graphics. Sometimes the mountains are mountains, but sometimes the scenery is not the scenery. Moreover, the speed is so fast that everyone does not think about it, but follows them. They call it mind's journey. In one of the scenes, I saw scenes of heavy traffic in the city, and I thought one of them should be Toronto, but the scenes overlapped, crisscrossed, and chaotic, but in the end, I felt a little peace. When the chaos ends, everything returns to order.

I can't be sure that every detail is so deliberately arranged by the band, but I believe that everyone in the audience will have different feelings and understandings, and what everyone takes away will be different. If anyone got interested in quantum mechanics because of this recital, that's what he got. The only thing that is certain is that the band will dedicate the last song to Edgar, so there are many pictures of Edgar on the screen, which reminds everyone of this pioneer of electronic music and affirms his achievements in the music world for nearly half a century.

"Orange Dreams" is an unusual band. Music is their primary and only means of communication. As soon as they came on stage, they started making music without saying a word, not even thanking them. There was no room for applause. Only after the performance was over, the three people stood in front of each other, introduced each other, and said thank you to the audience. To say, in the past two hours, it has been clear.