GREEN DESERT

Tangerine Dream had a pretty good streak of cool albums, from about Phaedra (1974) to Poland (1984).  A few weak spots here and there, but mostly pretty solid.  They had a few impressive moments between the end of the 80s and Edgar's death, but they escape me at the moment.  Mostly, they sucked, and when they weren't sucking they were actively trying to destroy their legacy by remaking their classic albums, and remaking them in as crappy a way as possible.  It never really made any sense.  Dude seemed incredibly insecure.

After Poland came Le Parc, which blows chunks in a big way and should be avoided like the plague.  After that, tho, came Green Desert, which is one of their best, but which I've always been suspicious of.  Supposedly, it was recorded in '73 and then shelved until 13 years later when Edgar decided to spruce it up and release it.  This is the album where all of the stoner Pink Floyd comparisons actually  make sense, and mostly on the 19:25 title track which sounds like a mix between Obscured by Clouds (the song) and some of the Dark Side vibe.  Very contemporaneous of early 70s Floyd.  The rest of the album, while still very good, sounds like it could have easily been recorded in the early 80s, around the same time as TD's Hyperborea. 

We'll never get the truth now, I suppose (not that we ever would have), but I'm just killing time waiting for some paint to dry on a  new painting so I can add another layer of color.