"Rubycon" is surely Tangerine Dream's finest hour. I see this album as the culmination of their early ultra-ambient work. It took the disparate ideas displayed on the previous album, "Phaedra" and coalesced them into a hugely satisfying whole.

The album is worth the money for the first ten minutes alone; this is experimental synthesis at it's best, layers of beautifully sculpted sound mixed with those awesome repeating bass sequences... it just doesn't get any better than this.

I feel the later albums lost the plot with the introduction of recognisable melodies. The mix of weird / tune was only fully realised on the "Poland" album (in my humble opinion). The track "Horizon" bringing back those early seventies strangeness and mixing it with eighties sequencing.

If you like "Rubycon", Froese's early solo works "Aqua" and "Epsilon In Malaysian Pale" are in a similar vein, but TD only rarely recaptured this kind of form.

"Rubycon" is TD's 5th album release,coming right off the huge international success of their previous release,the now-classic,"Phaedra".In many ways,"Rubycon" is similar to "Phaedra",both in style and in the use of instruments,such as mellotron,etc.,but there are also many differences as well,with one of the most obvious being the lesser amount of only two tracks instead of the usual four,but even with the fewer tracks,"Rubycon" is still able to dazzle you with its lush mellotron soundscapes and stimulating musical directions.The first piece,the appropriately titled "Rubycon",can be considered the light side of the album,with its gently pulsating mellotron in the background and the other synths taking you away,sucking you into a whole other dimension of sound that you will never want to leave from.The beauty of this early ambient piece surrounds and consumes you,leaving you in a natural,music-induced high.Once again,I find that words cannot fully describe the emotions that I feel while listening to this electronic soundscape of no return.Simply breathtaking.This brings me to the final piece,"Rubycon Part 2",which is the dark side of the album.From the very first seconds of listening to this piece,you will instantly know that this track will be different than the first.The first few minutes consist of what I believe to be some of TD's most darkest sounds ever in their entire history,with electronically generated chorus-sounding male voices that remind me of some gothic horror film,truly an eerie few moments of dark ambient bliss.Eventually,the artificial chorus gives way to some equally eerie sounding synths,continuing in this pattern for a good portion of the rest of the track.Simply astonishing,considering this was recorded in 1975!The final few minutes of the piece sees the eerie atmosphere slowly dissipating,and for the rest of the piece,the darkness gradually fades and the sun starts to peak out of the black clouds for the first time since the beginning of the album,with the piece ending with a beautiful,brighter melody of calm,and then,sadly,the album comes to a close,leaving you with the mindset that it could have gone on for all eternity and you wouldn't have minded.This album's theme is most accurately described as a journey to the darkest corners of the universe and back.A powerful early ambient masterpiece by Tangerine Dream.Very Highly Recommended!

I adore this album. The two tracks presented are almost mirror images of each other. Part one opens with gentle, sporadic organ sounds but then suddenly opens out into a heavenly wash of sweeping synthesizer chords, with what sounds like a seagull crying overhead. This eventually fades into Part one's central "sequencer" section. Motivic, repetitive, and pulsing. Building repeatedly to small climaxes. This kind of music first appeared on side 1 of 1974's Phaedra. It's as though TD realized that side 1 of Phaedra was infinitely better than side 2, and tried to correct this by making a more rounded album in Rubycon. Part one ends with a haunting, eerie motionless section, setting the scene for part 2.

Part two begins with some of the most generically frightening music TD ever produced. Wailing synths rise and fall in pitch, giving the feeling of being inside a haunted house at a fair. Soon the synth sound is replaced by human voices in a demonic choral section that takes you out of the funfair and somewhere far darker! This music puts shivers up your spine if you're listening after dark with the lights out. Then comes part two's central "sequencer" section. Much darker than that in part one, but also much more syncopated. This is the "dark side" to part one's "light side". Just when all seems hopeless however part two fades into one of the most beautiful endings to any of their albums, a gentle dreamlike wash of sound and harmony reminiscent of the beginning of part one (although musically very different).

So there it is. Tangerine Dream's most perfect album? In my opinion it quite possibly is. It is the only time that they have ever created an album that plays like a symphony, in that both movements are well structured and work well separately. Yet when heard together they form a wonderful journey into the heart of darkness. And back.

I've worn out my original UK import LP of this album in the 1970s (yeah, I'm o-l-d). I then bought a US pressing, was disappointed by the quality (or lack thereof) of the copy, and found another import copy to wear out. I then bought the UK CD in the 80s because the US hadn't released it yet. Then I got the re-mastered version. I recently bought the SACD(which has a CD layer so it can be played on conventional CD players, too). This album has always been, and will always be, a major component to the soundtrack of my life.

It is similar to Tangerine Dream's previous album, 'Phaedra', in that it is music that melts. But they take it a step further this time. I think it might have had to do with the advancements in the technological prowess of their equipment at the time, but on this album they were able to sustain the mood set by their synths for longer periods of time, thus the two sidelong pieces. But it is in the aural painting with such a wide palette of colors and textures, and at the same time mimicking the mania that might occur from sustained meditation on a frightening theme that sets it miles apart from their previous work, and all work to follow. Not only their work, but also every other attempt at extended tone-poem pieces that has been composed by an electronic artist.

The beginning and of each piece are either nightmarish introductions or narcotic-like releases from the sequencer onslaught of the center of the pieces (and centerpieces). The mellotrons mimicking human voices on the start of 'Part II' is almost a direct quote from Ligeti's 'Requiem', and whether they knew this at the time or not, Tangerine Dream might have been touched by the same divine musical muse. The climax of each piece is evocative of an auditory house of mirrors, or an acoustic maze - even on repeated listenings, the sense of not knowing where the piece might take you is intense. I'd rather not use the analogy of an acid-trip beginning, climaxing, and ending, but I have a strange (and rather strong) feeling that this is what The Dream might have intended.

Many have stated that they like to use this album as background music, or music to fall asleep to. I agree, it can be used like that. But Tangerine Dream at this time in their career played this material live at almost deafening volumes, and I highly recommend that you try it with the volume on 11 once or twice.

One may question whether or not this album is 'music'. Well, if you are open minded, you will agree that music is any organization of sounds that is either pleasing to the ear, or elicits an emotional response when played. Yet this is sound that is synaesthetic. It is music that you will see with your ears.

I cannot even begin to guess how many times I have played this album since its release 25 years ago. It is astonishing how easily Rubycon has stood the test of time. Part I remains one of my all-time fave TD pieces, starting off slowly and then developing into a storm of multiple layers of synths and threatening sequencers, ultimately gently fading away. It is difficult to reconcile the classic TD sound on Rubycon with the "TD-lite" sound on the TD releases in the 90s. I make it a point to stay open-minded about how bands develop over time, but when I hear some of the things TD dares to release nowadays, I can only shake my head and think how truly ground-breaking they once were. Rubycon shows how and why.