Edgar Froese, 1944-2015

January 23, 2015 12:11 PM

Word has arrived that Edgar Froese, founding member of the massively influential electronic group Tangerine Dream, has passed away. Froese was a pioneering figure in the German Krautrock and Kosmische styles, and contributed an unfathomable amount to the world of ambient/psychedelic electronic music.

From the official Tangerine Dream site (auto-loading music):

Dear Friends,

This is a message to you we are deeply sorry for…
On January 20th, Tuesday afternoon, Edgar Froese suddenly and unexpectedly passed away from the effects of a pulmonary embolism in Vienna.
The sadness in our hearts is immensely.

Edgar once said: “There is no death, there is just a change of our cosmic address."

Edgar, this is a little comfort to us.

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (full album, 1974)
Rendezvous with Tangerine Dream - an hour-long selection of moments in the group's career
Edgar Froese solo TV performance (1981)

posted by naju (57 comments total)

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posted by saulgoodman at 12:11 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by annsunny at 12:17 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by wanderingmind at 12:22 PM on January 23, 2015

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the album for me is Rubycon. I wish all my dreams were as expansive, spacious and beautiful.

Also, the Tangerine Dream part of Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany
posted by philip-random at 12:24 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

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posted by Foosnark at 12:25 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by Gelatin at 12:26 PM on January 23, 2015

Not finding any articles / obituaries yet, but it's also been corroborated by Froese's son, who posted the news to his Facebook page.
posted by naju at 12:28 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by droplet at 12:34 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by ghostbikes at 12:38 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:39 PM on January 23, 2015

This is a huge loss. Froese was a tremendously influential musician. I'd argue that he wasn't just a founding member of Tangerine Dream, but as the only constant member the group's vision and driving force.
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:40 PM on January 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

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posted by Halloween Jack at 12:42 PM on January 23, 2015 [10 favorites]

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posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:43 PM on January 23, 2015

(Also, the opening scene of Thief, one of my favorite pieces of Tangerine Dream's.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

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posted by vibrotronica at 12:52 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by theodolite at 12:52 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by Theta States at 12:58 PM on January 23, 2015

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A great influence on, well, practically every electronic musician alive...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:58 PM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ruhe in Frieden.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:03 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by Ansible at 1:04 PM on January 23, 2015

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I am a huge TD fan. It was so hard to track their albums down for the longest time. I'd put on Phaedra or Rubycon or Stratosfear or Ricochet or Zeit before bed for years. They were my go-to lucid dream music.

Most people will have hopefully heard "Love on a real train." (Some of their other cuts on the Risky Business soundtrack are taken from their earlier albums.)

I legend has it they wrote the haunting and perfect Sorcerer soundtrack not by seeing the movie, but by flying down to the jungle for three days and tuning into it's spirit.
posted by Catblack at 1:05 PM on January 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

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posted by acb at 1:10 PM on January 23, 2015

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Huge fan here. This is truly sad news. Exit got me through college.
posted by Chuffy at 1:12 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

big sads from this analog synth fanatic. /me pours a sine wave.
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:20 PM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just watched Thief a couple weeks ago. It's a great flick and TD's music is perfect. The soundtrack for Sorcerer is also fantastic and the director, William Friedkin, has said that if he had been exposed to Tangerine Dream before scoring his movie The Exorcist that he would have asked them to score that picture as well.
posted by saul wright at 1:28 PM on January 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

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posted by Joey Michaels at 1:28 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by dirtdirt at 1:31 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by dlugoczaj at 1:35 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by porn in the woods at 1:43 PM on January 23, 2015

"Unfathomable amount" is exactly the right phrase for what he contributed.
posted by blucevalo at 1:46 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

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posted by skycrashesdown at 1:50 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by lalochezia at 2:00 PM on January 23, 2015

Damn.

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posted by MartinWisse at 2:02 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by ropeladder at 2:08 PM on January 23, 2015

My sine waves have gone all sawtooth.

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posted by dbiedny at 2:24 PM on January 23, 2015

I've always been fond of his Epsilon in Malaysian Pale.
posted by gregor-e at 2:24 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 2:26 PM on January 23, 2015

When I was 15, I lived in Montgomery, Alabama for a year. Every month I would take my allowance, bicycle across town to the only record store that carried imports, and buy a Tangerine Dream album.

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posted by doubtfulpalace at 3:40 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was a huge fan back in the '70s. I still have the vinyl.

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posted by lordrunningclam at 3:47 PM on January 23, 2015

I'm currently enjoying the very atmospheric, melancholy soundtrack for Wavelength, a movie I've never heard of that appears to be about Cherie Curie investigating army experiments on child aliens.
posted by naju at 4:26 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by interrupt at 5:16 PM on January 23, 2015

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Mars Polaris is still one of my favorite albums ever.
posted by HFSH at 7:22 PM on January 23, 2015

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Talking to Maddox is probably my favorite track of his
posted by dylanjames at 8:09 PM on January 23, 2015

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posted by pt68 at 9:19 PM on January 23, 2015

Whenever I think of TD music, I think of the word "propulsion".
I truly hope that he is, somewhere, still going at full speed.
posted by Chitownfats at 11:42 PM on January 23, 2015

Got most of the vinyls when they were "cool" but I'd probably find they lacked sophistication now. If I could play them. However I watched Sorcerer a few months and was totally mesmerised by the river crossing sequence - the music just needed to be there.

Enjoy the cosmos, Edgar.

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posted by arzakh at 3:02 AM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

♪
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:12 AM on January 24, 2015

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posted by evilDoug at 5:36 AM on January 24, 2015

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posted by Ber at 6:29 AM on January 24, 2015

Old Boards of Canada track XYZ, reportedly never released due to an uncleared sample from Froese's "It Would Be like Samoa."
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:38 AM on January 24, 2015

Just slipped Rubycon onto the turntable.

aav.

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posted by the sobsister at 8:47 AM on January 24, 2015

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posted by immlass at 9:49 AM on January 24, 2015

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posted by luckynerd at 10:13 AM on January 24, 2015

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posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 2:43 PM on January 24, 2015

If you are a Tangerine Dream / Froese fan, please do try and check out the isolated Tangerine Dream score for the recent Grand Theft Auto V (which was, I think, mostly if not all Froese, but I am not certain of that). For me it ranks with some of the best subtle, minimal but driving and tonally razor sharp synthesizer soundtrack work of their mid period career. Like some of the stuff in Wavelength, or Risky Business.

They were the greatest electronic band of all time.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:46 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Enjoy the cosmos, Edgar.

That's a good way to put it. Stratosfear is my favorite synthesizer track of all time.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:41 PM on January 24, 2015

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posted by klausness at 5:14 AM on January 26, 2015