The Romance of Peter Baumann (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

Certainly, if one likes Tangerine Dream, they’ll appreciate Romance 76. But your debut record is different enough sonically so that it stands apart. On the record’s liner notes, there’s mention of a custom-built synth from Project Electronic Berlin. What can you tell me about that?

Christopher bought a modular Moog, and that was very cool. I was friendly with the folks who built this custom synthesizer; I said, “There are a few things that I think I want to change, because for live performances, the Moog is very hard to handle. You can’t really start plugging things in.” So I had little custom-made panels [where] I could connect the oscillator with the filter, the filter with the envelope, sometimes two oscillators. I could very [quickly] patch all of the individual elements together.

And the other thing that I really wanted custom-made was the sequencer. It was very hard to tune live if you suddenly wanted to have a different tone or some note. So I had a step-function sequencer, but with quantized values. One button was for octaves, and one for semi-notes. So I could change the sequence very fast; all this was done predominantly for live [performance].

I understand that the Mellotron you had access to did not use a factory set of tapes; you had custom ones…

God, I haven’t thought about that in a long time! In London, we met the folks who made the Mellotron, and we used some factory tapes. We had a whole bunch of those tapes whenever we needed them, but we also recorded some things. I don’t know where the source material was, but, for instance, sounds of whales wailing, we would put that on there. And I would record some sounds like crashing a glass or knocking on wood; there were all sorts of animal sounds and construction sounds. We weren’t really looking for other melodic sounds, but more for atmospheric sounds.

So, sampling before it was sampling…

Yeah, exactly.

How did David Bowie influence the character of Romance 76?

He lived in Berlin at the time, and we met together; as a whole band we would have dinner with him. And sometimes Iggy Pop was there as well.

Bowie heard that I was in the studio playing around, and he said, “I’ll come by. I have time.” So he came by, and I had a refrigerator full of small champagne bottles; he just loved that. And this is so cool, because he didn’t drink. “He said, “Let’s have a little champagne.”

So we had a couple of those, and I played him some of the tracks I was working on. I said to him, “I’m thinking of doing this and that.” And he categorically said, “No, don’t touch it. It’s great the way it is.” So he really pushed me in the direction of keeping it simple.

There’s an organic feel to Romance 76. To my ears, part of that comes by way of your use of more “traditional” instruments like the Fender Rhodes. Were you employing a wider array of instruments on that album with a goal of trying to expand your sonic palette?

It was really just the setup that I took on the road; I didn’t buy anything specifically for this recording. But my personal approach was always more towards melodies. I balance things out, and there’s a certain pattern to how I like things to feel; that’s just my personality. But I didn’t have a goal. I haven’t had a goal in my life! It all just happened accidentally.

There’s a cinematic quality to some of the tracks, especially “The Glass Bridge.” Since you were not working with lyrics with these pieces, were you attempting to communicate specific feelings and atmospheres?

Individually, we all have different preferences and sensory favorites. And if you look at the album cover, it came about the same way as the name; I like juxtaposition. “Romance” is a romantic word, and 76 is just a number, though it also happened to be the year I did it. [The cover photo] is a juxtaposition of two halves of the face, so that [theme] seems to be reappearing all the time. And “The Glass Bridge” is bridging the two aspects of the personality: the analytical and the feeling.

Romance 76 has been reissued a number of times in the years since its first appearance. Does it surprise you that the album continues to appeal to listeners nearly half a century after you made it?

I feel good about it. It’s fun to see that it’s still alive. When I did the record, the same as with Edgar’s Aqua, it was really a side project. It never got full attention at the time. Looking back at the original period of Tangerine Dream, everything that we did had a very unique quality, and Romance 76 was part of that. You can’t recreate that anymore; I couldn’t make a record like that today, and I don’t think anybody could. It was specifically from that time, and it was kind of a landmark time for that particular style.

I have a very odd attitude about it: When something’s done, it’s done. This morning I said, “Well, here I am. I’m going to do an interview about a record that’s 50 years old.” I never thought that would happen! I just wanted to be in the studio.

Click HERE for more of our conversation, this time focusing on Baumann’s work with Conrad Schnitzler.