California Dreamin’
He’s a musician who never plans for anything, but Tangerine Dream fans can rejoice in not just the 50th-anniversary reissue of Phaedra, but also a new album from one of its creators. Synth maestro Peter Baumann makes a welcome return with Nightfall, which continues his ongoing exploration of the human condition. He tells Prog why he prefers to do things in a haphazard way and why he wishes he’d had the chance to work with Edgar Froese again.
Words: Rob Hughes
"Ive never considered myself to be a good musician,” says Peter Baumann. “I’m not a good keyboard player, but the upside is that you reach for more ways to express yourself. It’s all intuitive, it’s all creative. My whole life I’ve never felt like doing what you’re supposed to do. I’ve always kind of moved in haphazard ways.” "
Haphazardly or not, Baumann’s journey through music is a pretty distinguished one. As a member of Tangerine Dream during their imperial 70s phase, he helped advance the Berlin School of electronica, creating avantgarde music forged from the twin poles of technology and free improvisation. When he quit in 1977 – leaving behind a run of hugely influential albums – he applied a similar “We spent a little bit of time together i working approach, albeit on a less grand scale, to his solo career.
“I would’ve loved to have made more music with Edgar Froese. There was a very interesting chemistry between Edgar and myself. His way and mine were very complementary.”
“I would say that the feeling, where it comes from, has stayed the same,” Baumann offers. “In Tangerine Dream, it was about making the expression as direct as possible. In the studio we’d record things like a mattress falling onto a cymbal, then turn it over backwards and put it through a phaser. So there were no limits. We’d record whale sounds on a Mellotron tape and then treat them. Whenever we played any kind of melody that already sounded conventional, we’d change it. It was always about expansion, about transcendence.”