''Alpha Centauri'' is the second studio album by German

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

group

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...

. It was released in March 1971 by record label

Ohr Ohr (, plural: ''ʾoroṯ'') is a central Kabbalistic term in Jewish mysticism. The analogy to physical light describes divine emanations. Shefa "flow" ( ''šep̄aʿ'') and its derivative, hashpaʾa "influence" ( ''hašpāʿā''), are sometim ...

Content

The music on this album is quite different from Tangerine Dream's first album ''

Electronic Meditation ''Electronic Meditation'' is the debut album by German electronic music group Tangerine Dream. It was released in June 1970 by record label Ohr. Recording and release The album was recorded in a rented factory in Berlin in October 1969, using ...

'', partly because of a heavier reliance on keyboards and electronic technology, although they still mostly remain in the background: the dominant instruments on the album are organ and flute. The shift in instrumentation resulted in an atmosphere dubbed by Edgar Froese himself as "".

Julian Cope Julian David Cope (born 21 October 1957) is an English musician and author. He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side proj ...

's Head Heritage wrote that the album "used the

space rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...

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Pink_Floyd.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Pink Floyd">/nowiki>Pink Floyd's''A Saucerful of Secrets">Saucerful of Secrets'' (and removed the rock)". A nowadays extremely rare single "Ultima Thule" was released in February of the same year. Side 1 employs the same guitar riff as "Fly and Collision of Comas Sola", but the single was at the time otherwise an unconnected release. Re-releases of Alpha Centauri in the 2000s have however included either or both parts of Ultima Thule as bonus tracks.

Release

''Alpha Centauri'' was released in March 1971 by record label

. It sold 20,000 copies in their native Germany, nearly four times as many as their later classic ''Phaedra (album)">Phaedra Phaedra may refer to: Mythology * Phaedra (mythology), Cretan princess, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus Arts and entertainment * Phaedra (Cabanel), ''Phaedra'' (Cabanel), an 1880 painting by Alexandre Cabanel *House of Phaedra ...

''.

Track listing

Personnel

* Edgar Froese – guitar, organ, bass, composer * Christopher Franke – drums, percussion, flute, zither, piano, VCS3 * Steve Schroyder – organ, voice, echo machines, iron stick * Udo Dennebourg – flute, voice * Roland Paulick – synthesizer

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1971 albums Krautrock albums Space music albums by German artists Tangerine Dream albums Ohr (record label) albums Albums produced by Edgar Froese Albums produced by Christopher Franke