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Tangerine Dream’s breakthrough album will be celebrated in a box set that features a host of audiovisual material taken from a bigger box set.

Virgin/UMR will reissue the German group’s 1974 hit Phaedra as a 5CD/Blu-ray box set featuring all the relevant album-related material featured in 2019’s 16 CD/2BD In Search of Hades (The Virgin Recordings 1973-1979). Beyond the remastered album, extras include two discs of outtakes, the band’s first U.K. concert and some 5.1 surround and stereo remixes of the album material by celebrated engineer Steven Wilson. The set also comes with a new illustrated book featuring liner notes by band expert Wouter Bessels.

Though Tangerine Dream had been recording for several years by this point – this was their fifth studio album, and previous work Atem (1973) was a favorite of British DJ John Peel – Phaedra was a landmark in electronic music. Signed by an intrigued Richard Branson to his nascent Virgin label, the group – Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann – convened in Oxfordshire studio The Manor with a newly-purchased Moog synthesizer among their gear, and attempted to record something new. Beset by technical problems, most notably the Moog’s oscillators overheating and detuning toward the end of the title track, Tangerine Dream nonetheless found inspiration through their first-ever use of electronic sequencers to create bass notes. Phaedra became an unlikely success, reaching the Top 15 in the U.K. charts over a four-month period thanks mostly to word-of-mouth; beyond giving the band a definitive sonic signature, it influenced generations of electronic and ambient musicians and set the band up with a fan base that continues even beyond the membership of the trio. (Baumann departed in 1977, Franke a decade later, and Froese died in 2015, appointing member Thorsten Quaeschning as his successor.)

The deluxe Phaedra is available April 18 and can be pre-ordered below. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Phaedra (50th Anniversary Edition) (Virgin/EMI/UMR, 2025) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: Remastered album and bonus tracks

1. Phaedra
2. Mysterious Semblance At the Strand of Nightmares
3. Moments of a Visionary
4. Sequent C
5. Phaedra (Steven Wilson Stereo Mix)
6. Sequent C (Steven Wilson Stereo Mix)

CD 2-3: Outtakes, November 1973

1. 2nd Day
2. Flute Organ Piece
3. Phaedra Outtake Version 2A

1. Phaedra Outtake 1
2. Phaedra Outtake 2B
3. 2nd Side Piece 1
4. 2nd Side Piece 2
5. Organ Piece

CD 4-5: Live At the Victoria Palace, London, England – 6/16/1974

1. Part 1

1. Part 2
2. Encore

Blu-ray: 5.1 surround mix of original album by Steven Wilson

CD 1, Tracks 1-4 released as Virgin V 2010 (U.K.)/VR 13-108 (U.S.), 1974
All other material released on In Search of Hades (The Virgin Recordings 1973-1979) – Virgin/UMC 772 711-9, 2019