Green Desert was supposedly recorded in 1973 in between the times Atem and Phaedra was released, but didn't see the light of day until 1986. But I don't believe that at all. Why is that? Knowing how Atem sounds like, knowing how Phaedra sounds like, knowing the equipment and synthesizers the band was using in 1973-1974, there is too many inconsistencies on Green Desert to make me believe this was from 1973. For one thing, I really object to the digital doctoring of the disc. In 1986, everyone was so excited over digital, so Edgar Froese & Co. decided to give it that digital touch. It's fine when the likes of Le Parc and Underwater Sunlight were recorded digitally since those were their latest releases at that time, and everyone was recording digitally in the mid 1980s, but not so fine when it's a supposedly (then) 13 year old recording. Too much of the album has that typical mid 1980s TD sound. I'm not too far off on saying that Green Desert has a whole lot more in common with Le Parc (1985) than any of their early Ohr or Virgin material. Why is that? Well, I hear lots of string synths, something I know for a fact the band didn't have until 1975, starting with Ricochet. I hear lots of drum machines that sound too 1980s to be from the 1970s. I hear lots of sounds that sounded like they came right off Le Parc. It'll be much easier to believe Green Desert was this long lost 1973 recording if they kept everything analog, with strictly Mellotron, VCS-3 synths, Farfisa organ and all those other keyboards I know they used on Atem and Phaedra. But I do admit the atmosphere to Green Desert tends to be creepier than anything they did on Le Parc or Underwater Sunlight, but I'm afraid to say that Green Desert left a money grubbing bad taste in my mouth. The one album that might best represent how Tangerine Dream might have sounded like in between Atem and Phaedra is Edgar Froese's first solo effort, Aqua (1974), which was actually released after Phaedra. If you want to really know how TD sounded like in 1973, pick up Atem.

I agree with other reviewers about the weakness of the shorter tracks here, but I must point out that the title track accounts for more than half the album's total running time ... and that track is fantastic. For pure, somber atmospherics, it's at the top of my Tangerine Dream list of songs. "Green Desert," indeed; you sink into it like soft sand, then find that there is, after all, life in this landscape. The keyboard, percussion and guitar parts are all first rate, but what separates it from the rest of the album is that those individual parts add up to a fully realized musical composition. Sorry to say that's not true of the shorter pieces, which sound almost jarring after nearly 20 minutes of "Green Desert" itself. But it still rates four stars, easily.

This album was mixed from long forgotten tapes of Edgar Froese and Chris Frank's aborted 1973 album, without Peter Bauman who had split for a bit. But Peter returned and they scraped this stuff in favour of an album with him. In 1984 Froese remixed and added in a ton of new material that really throws this out of wack with the rest of the T.D. catalogue. To pass this off as a long lost 1973 album is a complete sham. HOWEVER it does hold some merit with its flowing passages and moments of 1973 do appear here and there but they are quickly mixed in with 1984 T.D. sound. It fights itself alot but is over all a good but not great album. Think of it as 1984 album and it makes sense.

Browsing amazon can make good things come up. I first about Tangerine Dream on this site, and the name, the covers of Rubycon and Phaedra, and some of the descriptions of the music caught my eye. So I stumbled on this album in my library, saw the title, and was sold.

Until I actually popped it in. This album does not even come close to being a beautiful recreation of the magical desert people think about. Instead of recreating those desert fantasies, we get a boring, uninteresting album that recreates trudging through a painfully ugly desert on a hot day. Single chimes on one of the tracks? Where's the creativity? Sure, you could say the music is proving a point with the music, but there's no emotion in that. The dark undercurrents and soothing, sublime sounds of Rubycon are much better, and yes, I have heard them. When guitars appear on one of the tracks, it's best to forget this. I actually think they just slapped songs on this album and added another worthless album to the now-100 catalog of Tangerine Dream albums.

Green Desert is as exciting as watching water drip. Thank god I didn't pay money for this.

1/10

Originally recorded in 1973 without Peter Baumann (Peter had taken a short break from the band), Green Desert was not released until 1986. The recording was obviously "touched up" and some fillers were added because this album definitely does NOT sound like the TD of the early '70s.

Many fans felt deceived by this album thinking that they were going to hear something more along the lines of Atem, Zeit or Phaedra. This simply was not the case. With the 1986-era updates, or quite possibly BECAUSE of them, Green Desert stands alone as an excellent example of Tangerine Dreams's creativity and musicianship.

The title track is an ominous and downright spooky affair that could have served as the soundtrack to a top-grade horror film. Gradually, the spookiness is dampened by synth washes and Edgar's technically and artistically perfect guitar. Eventually, Chris Franke adds drums and the pace builds and builds to a feverish pace and then climaxes with more synth washes, only these are a bit lighter and brighter than the track's earlier musings.

Astral Voyager is a testament to Chris Franke's prowess with a sequencer which is overlayed with light and airy synth voices that make the fast-paced track seem a bit more atmospheric.

All in all, Green Desert should be taken for what it is; a (brilliant) release from the electronic music pioneers otherwise known as Tangerine Dream. Discard the fact that it was originally recorded in '73, unless you simply cannot stand anything from the band after that period. If you get past that personal roadblock, it's clear what a masterful piece of work this album is.