- Ambient rising star Grand River takes on Tangerine Dream's best record in years.
- Tangerine Dream's post-Edgar Froese albums have been spotty, but over the last few years they've been building up to something that approaches their stargazing peak, beyond the '90s and '00s nadir. Probe 6-8, coming ahead of a new album next year, is easily the best since Froese's tragic death, and it was even made with some of his old arrangements left intact. The 15-minute opener "Raum" is a treat for any fan of the mid-'70s era, with sequencers stretching into infinity, but it's in the remixes—from Barker and Grand River—where Tangerine Dream show they know how to really bring their music into 2021.
Grand RIver's take on "Raum" sheds nine minutes of runtime and heads straight for the pleasure centers. It's all about the arpeggios, now shimmering strong and bright, with a brittle countermelody that sounds almost like a string section. It balances everything good about Tangerine Dream, the melodrama, the sentimentality and that feeling of perpetual, weightless gliding. It touches on something both contemporary and retro, an ambient lava flow that defines so much of what makes Grand River excellent, too.