Jeanne D'arc

I've owned this album for awhile now, and I thought I would hold off on posting my opinion until my feeling was solid. I think I've given less credit when due and vice versa in some previous reviews.This weekend I played Jean D'Arc in the car as I took a long ride into town and thought how much I love this CD. Previously I listened over summers while cycling in the foothills, which was perfect really.This album is incredible. It moves wonderfully from theme to theme and feels rather well crafted and sophisticated. From the driving and layered opener of La Vision, and the blissful and sound composition of La Joie, to the crystalline of all that is Le Combat des Espees, Tangerine Dream delivers excellence without a doubt. In Combat, we get a long play that eventually turns to a great breakdown of sequencers dancing in mad rhythms. Add to this, very patient and solid drumming throughout from Thorsten Quaeshning (sounds like live drums), and in my opinion the best use of Linda Spa since "To Kill a Nightingale."The sound is thick and brooding with great lows such as the nice bassline that takes off in the groove parts in 'La Sagesse du Destin,' and light with such brilliant sections such as the dueling flute and synth part in the earlier half of that piece.There is quite a bit to this album, which to say that Jeanne d'Arc is a dense composition that in my opinion heralds Tangerine Dreams return to magnificence. What I thought was a good album in Mars Polaris, has been surpassed here, and to my delight what follows (Madcaps Flaming Duty, and Views from a Real Train) has not taken many if any at all steps backward. I felt myself feeling the same bigness and love for their music again that I did in albums such as their 1988 Live Miles album as I listened to the epic final cut La Liberation.It is an excellent album. I would recommend this CD without reservations.

Just listened to this CD that I never knew existed and it has quickly become one of my favorites. I love the new version of TD. I am not a big fan of the early 70's and 80's period. I think Jerome was an asset and am sorry he is not with the band any longer. However they have carried on without him and I believe this was the last CD he was on and it is a keeper. It is just as good as Mars Polaris and the 2 CD set titled Tan-Go. Very upbeat, ambient sounds that make you feel like you are travelling to a peaceful place. I love the fresh sound and am very please that I found this CD. If you like TD with a nice punchy sound that has layers of other instruments and sounds this is the one to get!

I find that most music done by Tangerine Dream endears itself after listening to it several times; I admit bias from the get-go. I had expected it to be more somber and hymn-like. It sounds modern for a medieval setting, however, music transcends time so it reflects the myth that has grown about a peasant girl, her vision and accomplishments.Jeanne D'Arc will reveal its layers as it is played and replayed; The Seven Letters of Tibet achieved endearment immediately; Jeanne D'Arc will take longer to appreciate--the quality is there.

I am pleasantly surprised with this CD, it has some really good music that I had heard somewhere else, perhaps a concert, that I had never heard again, but here it is. I would say I like about half of it really well and the other half is just OK. I would buy it again.

Tangerine Dream records can be a crapshoot. Sometimes it can be superb collection of compositions, other times it can be a bunch of noise. This is one of the superb ones.

I've been a long time fan of Tangerine Dream.This album is what I have come to expect of them.

This one has a twist. I think you'll like it

I like history, I like Joan of Arc, I like movie by Luc Besson about Joan, and I like Tangerine Dream.So I bought this album.I prefer Tangerine Dream of Froese-Franke-Haslinger line-up (Le Parc, Underwater Sunlight). And I think that the best album by new Tangerine Dream (Froese, Father and Son) is "Goblin`s Club" (1996).Here they are working with collaborators: co-author Thorsten Quaeschning (keyboards, drums), Linda Spa (sax, flute - she played also on "Goblin`s Club" - it was also a reason to buy this album for me), Iris Camaa (she sang on "Dante project" albums) - percussion. So as usual we hear familiar rhythmic "bubbling sequences" but live drums, percussion, saxophone, flute give to the record touches of beauty and of live performance - and so as a result we have the music with multi-level polyphonic 3D feeling of the world created by Tangerine Dream. I agree with the prevoius reviewers - the tracks "Le Combat du Sang", "Le Combat des Epees" and solemn final "La Liberation" are the most close to our favorite TD dynamic sound. And because these tracks are quite long soundclips here wouldn`t give you right impression of them.I really missed guitar by Edgar Froese and something authentic medieval - well, Enigma-like Gregorian chants samples:) Whitout it this album sounds as epic of some fantasy Joan of Arc in the space. Well, I expected less meditative and more dramatic tracks, and I missed the hit - a melody to remember, something like "Song of the Whale" on "Underwater Sunlight" or "Towards the Evening Star", "Lamb With Radar Eyes" from "Goblin`s Club"...So it is not the best album by Froese`s TD - I think that "Goblin`s Club" still their best (I`m not talking of their Dante project - it is very special music), but "Jeanne" is among their most strongest efforts in the last 10 years, and one of the most interesting albums of electronic music of 2005-2006.If you are a fan of Joan of Arc - try also album "Destination" by German band ELOY with the impressive prog-rock Rick Wakemanesque final epic song about this lady.Also I could recommend you solo albums by former TD members:Christopher Franke "The Celestine Prophesy" (1996) - big budget New Age style record performed with Berlin Symphonic Film Orchestra, choruses and ethnic instruments (reminds "The Conquest of Paradise" by Vangelis), his very impressive live CD "The London Concert" (1992; close to classic TD sound) and more ethnic and more dynamic (in the same time ambiental and agressive) music with many soundsamples - Paul Haslinger "World Without Rules". It is really interesting!

The first standalone Tangerine Dream album in five years, following the bizarre song-based Dante trilogy, Jeanne D'Arc is also the first album to feature Thorsten Quaeschning. Thorsten's compositions have become some of the most popular of recent years, and he gets off to a good start here, particularly on the driving Le Combat Des Épées. Jerome also throws in one of his best pieces to date, on the pensive piano-based La Solitude Dans L'Espoir.Stylistically, Jeanne D'Arc picks up where 1999's Mars Polaris left off, combining traditional TD synth sequences with rhythms that owe much to contemporary electronic music. Compositionally, something of The Seven Letters From Tibet has remained, with a more thoughtful, melodic perspective that combines with the style of the pieces to create what sounds like an updated version of the Schmoelling era of the band. Lone piano sections similarly remind of Tangram and Le Parc.One of the album's strengths is the segueing of tracks together - without silences between tracks, the record has a coherency which is akin to the band's earlier side-long pieces. Even Linda Spa's saxophone is played tastefully enough to fit in with the ethereal atmosphere of most of the tracks.Of course it wouldn't be a modern Tangerine Dream album without problems, and once again length is an issue: there is really no need for the album to fill a 79 minute CD to its limit - few albums warrant that length, especially one which is based on repetitive sequences and has no gaps between tracks. At certain points the album begins to feel as if it's one long, repetitive 80 minute track, which clearly doesn't work in its favour.Still, length problems aside, the content itself really is far better than it should be coming after a very shaky fifteen years of mostly disappointing releases. The melodies, arrangements and production on display on Jeanne D'Arc are uniformly excellent and, although it does outstay its welcome, the album is almost certainly the band's strongest since Underwater Sunlight almost twenty years before. It is sad that Thorsten and Jerome did not get on, with the latter leaving after the album's release, as it seems we will not get to hear this winning formula at work again.

This eighty-minute CD was issued between the second and third of the group's Dante trilogy, but its style is different therefrom. Instead, `Joan of Arc' has no vocals and possesses a 1980s feel. There is even some melody!However, most of the music is constructed around repetitions of sections in subtly different ways, building up structures layer by layer in which the listener can lose himself. (As usual with TD albums, I ignore the track titles as they barely have any resemblance to the music itself.) And because all the tracks segue into the next, the listener can suddenly wonder where he is on the tracklist. But there are also some contrasts too with a few passages of solo piano for example.Edgar and Jerome Froese are joined by Thorsten Quaeschning, Iris Camaa, and Linda Spa. We can sense their presence not only in the music's composition (Quaeschning co-wrote the tracks), but also in Spa's saxophone or flute in six of the nine tracks, and Camaa's real percussion being heard in at least two.This is an upbeat positive album that ends on a high. It's the best thing up to this point that TD had released since 1985's `Underwater Twilight'.

As always TD have come back to my ears with another great piece of work, they have never let me down in the 40 or so years that I have been listening to them and they still can make some lovely music. Thank you Edgar, and the sellers service was good as well so its good all round.

Great to see TD back on form. I love their music and this disc does not disappoint, highly recommended A+

arrived safe and sound intelligent music for all thank you Edgar.