Most of these performances were in the famous Zodiak Free Arts Lab, although one grouping also had the distinction of being invited to play for the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.

His early work with tape loops and other repeating sounds was the obvious precursor to the emerging technology of the sequencer, which Tangerine Dream quickly adopted upon its arrival.

Released in 1970 by record label Ohr, the first Tangerine Dream album, Electronic Meditation, was a tape-collage Krautrock piece, using the technology of the time rather than the synthesized music they later became famous for.

The band's music during the early 1970s prominently featured organ from Steve Schroyder (on Alpha Centauri) or Peter Baumann (on subsequent releases), commonly augmented by guitar from Froese and drums from Christopher Franke.

The creation of the album's title track was something of an accident: the band was experimenting in the studio with a recently acquired Moog synthesizer, and the tape happened to be rolling at the time.

Their technical competence and extensive experience in their early years with self-made instruments and unusual means of creating sounds meant that they were able to exploit this new technology to make music quite unlike anything heard before.

Tangerine Dream's earliest concerts were visually simple by modern standards, with three men sitting motionless for hours alongside massive electronic boxes festooned with patch cords and a few flashing lights.

This had been an interest of Froese's since the late 1960s, when he scored and acted in the experimental film "Auf Scheißer schießt man nicht", directed by Hansjürgen Pohland.

Most recently, the Eastgate Sonic Poems series, based on the works of famous poetic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, began in 2011, with the last appearing in 2013.

Thorsten Quaeschning, leader of Picture Palace Music, was brought into Tangerine Dream in 2005 and contributed to most of the band's albums and CupDiscs since then.

The group had recording contracts with Ohr, Virgin, Jive Electro, Private Music, and Miramar, and many of the minor soundtracks were released on Varèse Sarabande.

[21] Tangerine Dream played two consecutive nights at the Union Chapel, Islington London on April 23 & 24 2018, the second supported by ex-Japan and Porcupine Tree musician Richard Barbieri.

2023 saw the band embark on the largest tour of their entire career, including a 19-date tour of North America (September 8 – October 5: taking in Miami, Asheville, Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Albuquerque, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Montreal, Toronto and Chicago), 13-dates in Germany (October 10 – 28), and 10-dates in the UK (November 5 – 14)[citation needed] Edgar Froese died suddenly in Vienna on 20 January 2015 from a pulmonary embolism.

[27] On 9 June 2020, Paul Frick became the first member to join the group following Edgar's death after having made guest appearances with the band, starting in November 2018.

Tangerine Dream began as a surreal krautrock band, with each of the members contributing different musical influences and styles, before becoming a "revered progressive electronic act.

"[31] Edgar Froese's guitar style was inspired by Jimi Hendrix,[32] as well as the avant-garde composers Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen, while Christopher Franke contributed elements of György Ligeti and Terry Riley.

The sample-based sound collages of Johannes Schmoelling drew their inspiration from a number of sources; one instance is Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians on parts of Logos Live, and the track "Love on a Real Train" from the Risky Business soundtrack.

György Ligeti, Johann Sebastian Bach, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Maurice Ravel, and Arcangelo Corelli are clearly visible as dominant influences in the early albums.

A Baroque sensibility sometimes informs the more coordinated sequencer patterns, which has its most direct expression in the La Folia section that comes at the very end of the title track of Force Majeure.

In the bootleg recording of the Mannheim Mozartsaal concert of 1976 (Tangerine Tree volume 13), the first part of the first piece also clearly quotes from Franz Liszt's Totentanz.

During the 1990s, many releases included recordings of classical compositions: Pictures at an Exhibition (on Turn of the Tides), Largo (from Xerxes) (on Tyranny of Beauty), Symphony in A Minor (by J. S. Bach), and Concerto in A Major / Adagio (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (both on Ambient Monkeys).

Since the 1990s, Tangerine Dream have also recorded cover versions of Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" (first on 220 Volt Live) and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Tomorrow Never Knows", and "Norwegian Wood".

This was first evident on the 1981 album Exit, the track title "Pilots of the Purple Twilight" being a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Locksley Hall.

[6] Other long-term members of the group include Peter Baumann (1971–1977), who later went on to found the new-age label Private Music, to which the band was signed from 1988 to 1991; Johannes Schmoelling (1979–1985); Paul Haslinger (1986–1990); Froese's son Jerome Froese (1990–2006); Linda Spa (1990–1996, 2005–2014), a saxophonist & flute player who appeared on numerous albums and concerts, contributing one track on Goblins' Club; and most recently Thorsten Quaeschning of Picture Palace Music (2005–present).

Some of the more notable members are Steve Schroyder (organist, 1971–1972), Michael Hoenig (who replaced Baumann for a 1975 Australian tour and a London concert, included on Bootleg Box Set Vol.

1), Steve Jolliffe (wind instruments, keyboards and vocals on Cyclone and the following tour; he was also part of a short-lived 1969 line-up), Klaus Krüger (drummer on Cyclone and Force Majeure) and Ralf Wadephul (in collaboration with Edgar Froese recorded album Blue Dawn, but it was released only in 2006; also credited for one track on Optical Race (1988) and toured with the band in support of this album).

Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream was often joined on stage by Zlatko Perica or Gerald Gradwohl on guitars, and Emil Hachfeld on electronic drums.

For concerts and recordings, they were usually joined by Linda Spa on saxophone and flute, Iris Camaa on drums and percussion, and Bernhard Beibl on guitar.

Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Tangerine Dream would no longer be touring with Linda Spa or Iris Camaa, but that Ulrich Schnauss had been brought into the fold.

[41] Bianca Froese-Acquaye, Edgar Froese's widow, has taken up the mantle of continuing the legacy of the group and works closely in a non-musical capacity with the remaining members.