Tangerine Dream

Goblins Club

- Studio, released September 1996 -

Covers

CD release Europe 1996 Concept: Edgar Froese Layout: Hugh Gilmour	CD release Australia 1997 Concept: Edgar Froese Layout: Hugh Gilmour
CD counterfeit release Russia 1997	CD release Germany 2009
CD release Germany 2004 Artwork: Edgar Froese

Tracks


		[a]	[b]
1.	Towards The Evening Star	6:16	6:16
2.	At Darwin's Motel	7:22	7:22
3.	On Crane's Passage	4:28	4:28
4.	Rising Haul In Silence	7:33	7:33
5.	United Goblins Parade	5:44	5:44
6.	Lamb With Radar Eyes	8:39	8:39
7.	Elf June And The Midnight Patrol	4:40	-
8.	Sad Merlin's Sunday	10:50	10:50
9.	Fort Worth Runway One	-	6:42
Total running time		55:32	57:34


		[c]
1.	Towards The Evening Star	6:19
2.	At Darwin's Motel [2004 remix]	7:31
3.	On Crane's Passage	4:30
4.	Rising Haul In Silence	7:35
5.	United Goblins Parade	5:46
6.	Lamb With Radar Eyes	8:41
7.	Elf June And The Midnight Patrol	4:41
8.	Forth Worth Runway One [Excerpt]	5:30
9.	Sad Merlin's Sunday [Excerpt]	8:48
Total running time		59:21

Details


Recording date	May - July 1996
Recording site(s)	Eastgate Studios (Vienna)
Recording engineer(s)	Edgar Froese, Jerome Froese
Composer(s)	Edgar Froese, Jerome Froese, Linda Spa
Musician(s)	Edgar Froese, Jerome Froese, Linda Spa, Gerald Gradwohl, Mark Hornby
Producer(s)	Edgar Froese

Notes

"Are you familiar with the transparent type of fantastic mirror which is like a window -- in which you can see a landscape -- in which all the objects in your room are reflected? Suddenly you recognise the person beside you for what they really are, like in that initial moment when they first wake up -- with tousled hair, totally relaxed, not yet tensed, without a name or career or social standing. And then later, in that state of apparent wakefulness, they become a caricature, they turn into a bustling clown in their own circus and after a humble appearance, they must roll up their carpets again. In the end they remain jesters, buffoons.
And then there's that strange feeling when you're standing in front of the mirror, early in the morning, drying your face and you imagine that you just washed your thoughts along with everything else -- and maybe in doing so you destroyed a fragment of eternal truth with a handful of water. Maybe you yourself are a goblin -- in the midst of an entire world which has existed many times before. Maybe you are living on the lowest planet level -- maybe our earth is as meaningful to other planets as was Leonardo da Vinci's dog some past century ago as it just now went round that corner? What would happen if da Vinci's dog suddenly paused under the light of a gas lantern and it realised that life is the search for the 'nothing' after the 'something'? Da Vinci would be happy to have learned something from his dog. And in return he would tell the animal something about the body -- which translates the soul into the visible.
But now the day is completely worn out, let's climb back slowly to the morning."
- Christian Morgenstern while having a cup of Earl Grey in an old tea house in Berlin in the year 1906

In 1995 TD had announced a new studio album with the working title Heat Robinson, but with the release of The Dream Mixes and Beyond The Storm the band's former contracts with Miramar (USA) and Virgin (Europe) had been fulfilled. The end of these contracts now was the reason for the delay of Heat Robinson. According to Dream Collector, these recordings had been already finished in studio by March 1996. But Heat Robinson would become Tangerine Dream's first CD on the new label, and thus the management could not tell the exact date of release, as the band first had to sign new contracts for future records.

Finally the new album was released, now titled Goblins Club, by the British Castle Communications company. This would become the only new regular album on the new label, as only a few months later TD launched their own TDI label to release their future albums. Anyway, Castle had purchased the back catalog of the Pink and the Blue Years eras and would re-release all of these albums plus a number of compilations.

The music of the album was inspired by the German writer Christian Morgenstern, but there was also another idea behind the CD title, as Edgar Froese explained: A different view of earth as a Goblins Club from high above during a transatlantic flight. For this release, TD could not yet use all the advanced technology planned to introduce into their music. Not all of these devices did already work perfectly, so TD had to perform with this new technology step by step. This resulted in a musical product similar to its predecessors in style. This time, TD even had used wide-spread computer samples or presets: Fans were surprised when they found the passage of foreign female lyrics on At Darwin's Motel almost identical to the track The Child In Us on Enigma's CD Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!.

Re-Releases

In spring 1997, during their European tour, TD released the Australian version of Goblins Club, which had one track change. The new track Fort Worth Runway One -- more consistent in its mood than most of the other tracks on the CD -- replaced Elf June And The Midnight Patrol from the original release. This had been the only track on this album referring to Linda Spa as composer together with Edgar Froese. Thus, the new version of the CD contained material entirely composed by Edgar Froese and Jerome Froese. Linda Spa, who had left the band just before the European tour, also no longer appeared in the new booklet; it showed photographs of Edgar and Jerome only.

Jerome Froese: "Goblins Club was a rather difficult production as Edgar worked on the The Dream Roots Collection boxset on the side. Also, I was really sick of the Sax, which led to some heavy arguments between me and him. However, after Edgar had fallen out with Linda himself at the end of 1996, we were finally able to start a new direction. From 1997 on, I think we had a good lineup again with Emil Hachfeld and Zlatko Perica. The 1997 European Tour was definitely the most harmonious during my time with TD. Good lineup, great crew, lots of fun and cohesion of all involved." (Facebook, November 2020)

In 2004 Goblins Club was re-released on Tangerine Dream's own label TDI featuring the complete track list, including both Elf June And The Midnight Patrol and Fort Worth Runway One, though one track has been slightly remixed, and two tracks have been considerably shortened. Like other TDI re-releases this CD features completely new artwork done by Edgar Froese. The backside of the two-page insert shows a black/white photo of Edgar Froese, Jerome Froese and Linda Spa, the track listing and notes about composers and musicians. Notable is the omission of the partially faked extensive list of musicians involved in this project: On this release Tangerine Dream used a large number of samples, and the original booklet listed the artists who originally had performed that music (including the Vienna Boys Choir), giving the impression that they did their performance especially for this album.

In March 2009 the album was re-released with different cover design as part of an extensive digipack series (consisting of a total of more than 60 CD and DVD releases) by the Germany based Membran record label.

Releases


Australia	1997: Evolving Disks CD [b]: EVO011CD; digipack
Europe	1996: When!/Castle CD [a]: WENCD011
Germany	2004: TDI CD [c]: TDI CD038; blue/black/white disc 2009: Membran CD [c]: 232657; digipack
Russia	1997: First Town/Dora Counterfeit-CD [a]: W.O. 16839 2 - 00310054 - 1; silver/blue/black disc titled 'TD Goblin Club'
USA	1996: Sequel/Castle Advance-release-CD [a]: 1022-2 CD [a]: 1022-2 1999: Castle CD [a]: CMACD556