Reissue of 1986 album. Seven tracks, including the title track & the two part 'Song Of The Whale'. All tracks are digitally remastered from the original master tapes. Also features the original cover art.
Tangerine Dream's 1986 album "Underwater Sunlight" is the second of their major themed studio albums, building on the success of their previous release, "Le Parc". It also marks Paul Haslinger's debut with the band, following the departure of Johannes Schmoelling some six months earlier. Inspired perhaps by Edgar Froese's love for scuba diving, this album evokes various aspects of the underwater world. Don't worry that this disc is awash with `soothing and relaxing synthesiser sounds (TM)' played over taped whale and dolphin sounds and the splashing of the sea, though! Rather, what you'll find here are truly musical portraits - albeit of synthesiser origin - and all of the highest possible order.The major work on the disc is the two-part `Song of the Whale' - a classic Tangerine Dream composition. For almost 20 minutes, mellifluous guitar and soft synthesiser melodies build music which dips and soars majestically, at times driven along by sequencer-powered synthesiser rhythms, at other times drifting calmly in currents of its own making. Paul Hasslinger stamps his mark on this album very early on with his rhythm guitar work permeating both parts of `Song of the Whale' and with a sparkling grand piano solo, introducing part II. Hasslinger's rhythm guitar is in evidence, too, in the next track, `Dolphin Dance', which is an altogether more playful piece, featuring more classic TD alternating synthesiser and guitar riffs over pulsing percussion and jangling guitar. `Ride on the Ray' is a more stately affair, its melodies gliding effortlessly over a glittering array of percussion elements, while `Scuba scuba' uses a serious of flowing synthesiser voices to portray the scuba diver's distorted aural perspective of the world. Finally, the closing `Underwater twilight' evokes the somewhat unnerving serenity of the half-light found in deeper waters. Starting with a subdued and rather sedate synthesiser chorus, out of whose dulcet tones an electronic tom and percussion pulse emerges, with a shower of keyboard runs slowly rising like a flow of bubbles to the surface, this track draws the album to a powerful but gentle and satisfying conclusion.
