In summer 1976 Peter Baumann recorded his first solo album Romance 76, being quite different from TD's music of that period. That year Virgin had re-released the early TD records Electronic Meditation (1970), Alpha Centauri (1971), Zeit (1972) and Atem (1973), but the most important news was the August recording of Stratosfear (note the play on words!) at Audio Studios in Berlin. Besides the well-known instrumentation of mellotron and moog synthesisers, Tangerine Dream surprised their listeners with their use of acoustic instruments like harpsichord, acoustic guitars, grand piano and mouth organ. On the other hand, Peter Baumann used a new Project electronic rhythm computer which gave the percussive sequences a very dry, precise finish.
According to Edgar Froese, Stratosfear was the most complicated and nerve-wracking of any TD production, as there were lots of problems with Peter Baumann's new sequencer. Additionally, both of the multi-track machines in the studio broke down, and after their repair the Dolby units in the recording room were defunct, master tapes at times disappeared from the studio, finished tracks were mysteriously erased and the mixing console finally went up in smoke. Also there were a number of musical problems amongst the group about which tracks were to be chosen. When Edgar Froese appeared in the studio one day with a harmonica the absurdity of the situation was revealed. It was supposed to be a joke, a retort to the unpredictability of the technology, but after playing it during the beginning of 3 a.m. At The Border Of The Marsh From Okefenokee the group decided to leave it on.
In 1995 Virgin re-released the album on CD in the so-called "Definitive Edition" series, featuring the original front cover artwork. The sound quality of this release, using the Super Bit Mapping technology, is probably the best up to now, but like most of the other releases of this series, it contains some little errors: The third track is misspelled 3AM At The Border Of The Marsh on the CD body, and Peter Baumann's name is misspelled Baummann in the booklet.
