I found this album, like some of the previous reviewers mention, to be quite disappointing. In the cover sleeve, they put the emphasis on the fact that this was a hard album to make in and of itself, since it was recorded "live", which means that anything can and does happen. At no point do they tell you about the song or the sequences, which leads me to believe, after listening to the album, that indeed, they knew it was low on content. Do not buy this album if you want a sample of TD's original seventies music. This is not representative of their best material. Instead, may I suggest Ricochet, Force Majeure (My favorite from that period), or even some of their late seventies, early eighties material, such as Thief or Tangram. In truth, most of their seventies albums, "Virgin Years" as they are called, are quite impressive. I'll leave it to you to discover for yourself.

I agonized about buying this CD, but ultimately did and, perhaps because my expectations were limited (among others, because of the wildly varying reviews here on Amazon), I was very pleasantly surprised. This 1976 live recording fits nicely between the 1975 Ricochet live CD and the 1977 Encore live CD. The 41 min. track starts off tentatively, but gets really going about 14 min. into it, with throbbing sequencers and Mellotrons all over and a ripping Egdar Froese guitar for good measure. According to the liner notes, the entire piece was improvised as they played along, which only makes this even more intriguing and impressive. I'm trying to reconcile this with the review of this CD by Christian Turk (see his review), and in the end can only say that it sure doesn't sound like we listened to the same CD. Finally, as to some complaints that this CD is "only" 41 min. long: get over it already! Ricochet and Rubycon clock in each well under 40 min. and that doesn't bother anyone. Bottom line, I find this album to be a very welcome addition to the classic Tangerine Dream repertoire of the 73-77 era.

Lower your expectations; this is no 5 star disc. A quick aside: I've learned to skip most 5-star reviews of anything, as they're usually overzealous fans trying to help their favorite artists by proxy. With that said -

Soundmill is a cozy companion to ENCORE, hazily distant, with that unique ambience of the Baumann era. If you are not a fan of Encore, avoid Soundmill. If you haven't heard Encore, buy Encore first. Soundmill sounds like 'found' material that didn't make it onto Encore [I know this wasn't part of the Encore tour, but if the liner notes said otherwise you'd believe it].

Soundmill builds very slowly, but never quite plumbs the depths of imagination the way Desert Dream, Monolight, etc., do. You feel like you're waiting, waiting as they build up, and... it's over?! :-/ More like an 'in-betweener' piece: time to refill the bong, recycle the brew; you won't miss much hearing it through the bathroom wall...

A scant 41 mins. is almost inexcusable. Long gone are the time limitations of the old LP format [most of their 70s output averages only 40 mins. because LP's literally couldn't hold more time]. I wish they'd taken more care to complete the disc with more material, out-takes, variations (the way Klaus Schulze does)and spend less time on cover (re)designs. Soundmill isn't quite strong enough to stand completely on its own.

Bottom line: Encore fan? Buy it. If you're unfamiliar with the classic Baumann era, do yourself a favor and get ENCORE, STRATOSFEAR and RICOCHET for starters. Soundmill can wait.

I agree with other reviewers that this is a modern overdub of a classic live recording.
That said, I think this is what TD has been doing since it's beginning. Ricochet is an excellent recording BUT is a studio overdub (with studio tracks included) of a mix taken from TD's previous European gig, and that doesn't make Ricochet a bad recording but on the contrary it's a masterwork. Other examples of TD's overedub action being, Encore, Poland, Tangents (compilation)and the 3 dream mixes.

Soundmill Navigator does not deserve to qualify as a masterwork BUT it's an enjoyable fictional performance. Forget any expectation about listening to a historical record and you'll enjoy a kind of partially invented, or fictitious, live performance, mixing 21st century dubs with 30 year old synths.
It's very spacey, ambient, if you like, so if you enjoy a more rhythmic TD this CD might disappoint you.

Francisco

I got this album expecting it to sound something like "Ricochet" from the year before, and I was SEVERELY dissapinted with it. What's with all the overdubs? Where's the trademark synth arpeggios in the background? And most importantly, WHAT is that sound that keeps going "whit-whit, whit-whit" back and forth between the speakers for the CD's entire length, even after the crowd stops cheering!?
So obvoiusly what TD did was dig into their tape vault, pull out a mediocre, badly recorded tape, and overdub a zillion times to try to mask the old tape's flaws. The liner notes say this was the first half of the concert. So why didn't they put the WHOLE concert on the album? Probably because it sounded even worse!
What I don't get it why TD always makes a big deal about how "it was so hard to tour in the '70s with analog synths, and if even one cable was misconnected, the whoe thing would collape, blah blah". Emerson Lake and Palmer never had problems like that! Lots of other bands never had problems like that! Either TD is exaggerating or they were using VERY bad equipment.
So my advice would be: go buy Ricochet. Sounds a lot better (musically and quality-wise) and it's not half as annoying. Good grief, a lot of the sounds on SN weren't even AVAILABLE in 1976! Gimme a break.