Chip Festival 2017, scheduled for 28th-29th January in Budapest, Hungary, is bringing classic and modern electronica together on the legendary floating club ship A38.
The Festival will feature Tangerine Dream; Hungarian Berlin-school group Pergamon; Ulrich Schnauss, performing solo work from his new album; progressive electronic group Tangram; DJ/producer Simon Iddol and more.
On Saturday, Tangerine Dream (Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Ulrich Schnauss) will play a concert in honor of their founder, Edgar Froese.
The concert will feature performances of classic Tangerine Dream tracks, pieces originally composed and programmed by Froese, and tracks from their upcoming Quantum Gate album.
Here’s their live version of Madagasmala, accompanied by footage from a 2016 performance:
On Sunday, the festival concerts will start with Pergamoon, a Hungarian group that performs live takes on Tangerine Dream classics and also creates Berlin-school style original compositions.
Here’s their arrangement of Church Theme, from the TD Wavelength soundtrack:
The evening will also feature Tangram, a project of progressive electronic music composer Peter Fabok, who takes inspiration from 80’s ambient and electronic music.
Tangram returns from a 5-year break and will perform music from his new album, Vector Henge.
Here’s Tangram’s track, Bronze Bumblebees:
Sunday’s headliner is Ulrich Schnauss.
In addition to being a member of Tangerine Dream, Schnauss has a well-established career as a solo artist. Schnauss will perform original work, including tracks from his latest album, No Further Ahead Than Today.
Here’s the official music video for Schnauss’s Love Grows Out Of Thin Air, from the new album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t460CgRCLUs
The closing act of the festival is DJ/producer Simon Iddol. In addition to his work as a performer, Iddol also has created multiple music-related web sites, including AudioPorn Central, Mashuptown & MOARRR.
His Tangerine Dream reLOADED megamix, below, was aired by several European radio channels last year:
Tickets for the first day of Chip Festival 2017 are available for 6900 HUF (24 EUR). Sunday’s entry is free.
Looks like a fantastic event!
I wish that there were events like this scheduled in the US. The US is a desert for live electronic music these days.
Does Tangerine Dream actually play everything live? Or are they like Jean-Michel Jarre and Mannheim Steamroller and many other acts that fake it “live” via pre-recorded backing tracks?
A lot of their stuff can’t be ‘played live’, because the music was sequenced to begin with, and that’s a core part of their sound.
I’ve liked them best live when they combine live performance and sequencing in a way that leaves them room for improvising and also for manipulating the sequenced parts.
I’ve seen them at both extremes, though.
When i saw them in the 80’s, they had tons of gear onstage (monster Moog’s, the whole 9 yards). But for all I could tell, they hit ‘play’. It sounded great, but was a boring show.
For the last decade, they went in the other direction, performing with a whole stage full of musicians. I didn’t like that incarnation – it sounded like a bunch of people playing ‘new age jazz’, complete with mellow sax solos.
I like their current direction, though, which is to chop the band back down to a trio and to be very ‘electronic’. Their latest album is a concert album, and I’d rank it as one of their best live albums in decades. Their live version of Rubicon is especially good, along with Love on a Real Train and stuff from Sorcerer. Quaeschning is taking things in a good direction and Schnauss is a great addition, so I’m more interested in what they’re doing now than anything they’ve done since the 80s.
Good question.
I always assumed they played everything live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYywjDWXJsg
TD without Edgar Froese is Marillion without Fish – a bad joke IMHO.
Well, he decided to inconvenience you by dying. That leaves us with two choices. We can either pack up Tangerine Dream forever — no more live performances, no more reinventing it for the 21st century — or we can step forward into a brave new world.
Times change. Bands change (uh, wait. “Musical collectives change.”)
It’s OK.
I remember reading an interview with Edgar years ago and he said that he hoped and wanted TD to be a continual, changing and evolving band, so personally I thinks it’s wonderful that they’re continuing.
The current lineup is better than any in the last 26 years (since Haslinger left), IMHO.
What does the Chip in Chip Festival refer to? Does it have anything to do with Chiptunes? It appears not.
Love TD, always have. It’s good to see (hear) that the legacy continues. Yes it is “new”, but also “old” at the same time in good sense of the word – same, unmistakable chord progressions, melody structures and sequences that only TD can deliver.
BTW; Will try to make a trip to that event – all the way from AU, so it wan’t be easy, but hey, you only live once…
More and more is live as it was Edgar’s idea before he died to return to more hands on – TD have started this with 100% live improvisations as part of their set. Lars you need to grow up son.