The Darkest Canyon

The Virgin Years 1977-1983 is the follow-up to last year's The Virgin Years 1974-1978 (see review) by Tangerine Dream (TD). The latter album was a 3CD-box set comprising the five remastered albums TD recorded for Virgin Records between 1974 and 1978: Phaedra (1974), Rubycon (1975), Ricochet (1975), Stratosfear (1976) and Cyclone (1978) plus a selection of rare single releases, 7-inch edits as well as two rarely heard radio adverts. However, it didn't contain Encore, originally released in 1977. The follow-up to this previous release contains seven albums plus two singles all packed on a 5CD-album set.

Two minutes into The Lookout, a couple of related parallels bubble up when the David Crosby of If I Could Only Remember my Name and Gene Clark at his most sparse spring to mind. It’s not that the album’s opening cut “Margaret Sands” sounds like either but that the creative outlook is similar: a country-ish singer-songwriter setting their composition in a baroque musical frame.