From their formation in Germany in 1967, Tangerine Dream have defied easy categorization. Starting life as a fairly conventional acid rock outfit inspired by Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, the band soon evolved into space rock territory, taking over where the British group Pink Floyd had left off. Their subsequent adoption of synthesizers and sequenced sounds in the 1970s made them pioneers in electronic music. Tangerine Dream's continual musical evolution, prodigious output, and sheer longevity (they had recorded over 60 albums by the year 2000) makes any attempt at critical analysis a complex task, but Paul Stump's scholarly DIGITAL GOTHIC provides an absorbing and unique view of the band as a product of numerous influences. Science fiction, Situationism, Dadaism, and even German Romanticism all, in Stump's opinion, contributed to the Tangerine Dream worldview, in addition to the more conventional legacies of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Though he sees them as prophets of New Age, techno, and ambient music, Stump's ultimate assessment is that the band are more than godfathers of these genres: more than 30 years after their formation, they're still active participants in the musical world they helped create. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.