{"id":31212,"date":"2026-07-09T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31212"},"modified":"2026-07-10T07:40:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T11:40:32","slug":"the-romance-of-peter-baumann-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/the-romance-of-peter-baumann-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Romance of Peter Baumann (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Certainly, if one likes Tangerine Dream, they\u2019ll appreciate <\/b>Romance 76<\/b><\/i>. But your debut record is different enough sonically so that it stands apart. On the record\u2019s liner notes, there\u2019s mention of a custom-built synth from Project Electronic Berlin. What can you tell me about that? <\/b><\/p>\n

Christopher bought a modular Moog, and that was very cool. I was friendly with the folks who built this custom synthesizer; I said, \u201cThere are a few things that I think I want to change, because for live performances, the Moog is very hard to handle. You can\u2019t really start plugging things in.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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].<\/p>\n

I understand that the Mellotron you had access to did not use a factory set of tapes; you had custom ones\u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n

God, I haven\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t really looking for other melodic sounds, but more for atmospheric sounds.<\/p>\n

So, sampling before it was sampling\u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n

How did David Bowie influence the character of <\/b>Romance 76<\/b><\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Bowie heard that I was in the studio playing around, and he said, \u201cI\u2019ll come by. I have time.\u201d 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\u2019t drink. \u201cHe said, \u201cLet\u2019s have a little champagne.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we had a couple of those, and I played him some of the tracks I was working on. I said to him, \u201cI\u2019m thinking of doing this and that.\u201d And he categorically said, \u201cNo, don\u2019t touch it. It\u2019s great the way it is.\u201d So he really pushed me in the direction of keeping it simple.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an organic feel to <\/b>Romance 76<\/b><\/i>. To my ears, part of that comes by way of your use of more \u201ctraditional\u201d 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?<\/b><\/p>\n

It was really just the setup that I took on the road; I didn\u2019t buy anything specifically for this recording. But my personal approach was always more towards melodies. I balance things out, and there\u2019s a certain pattern to how I like things to feel; that\u2019s just my personality. But I didn\u2019t have a goal. I haven\u2019t had a goal in my life! It all just happened accidentally.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a cinematic quality to some of the tracks, especially \u201cThe Glass Bridge.\u201d Since you were not working with lyrics with these pieces, were you attempting to communicate specific feelings and atmospheres? <\/b><\/p>\n

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. \u201cRomance\u201d 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 \u201cThe Glass Bridge\u201d is bridging the two aspects of the personality: the analytical and the feeling.<\/p>\n

Romance 76<\/b><\/i> 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? <\/b><\/p>\n

I feel good about it. It\u2019s fun to see that it\u2019s still alive. When I did the record, the same as with Edgar\u2019s Aqua<\/i>, 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<\/i> was part of that. You can\u2019t recreate that anymore; I couldn\u2019t make a record like that today, and I don\u2019t think anybody could. It was specifically from that time, and it was kind of a landmark time for that particular style.<\/p>\n

I have a very odd attitude about it: When something\u2019s done, it\u2019s done. This morning I said, \u201cWell, here I am. I\u2019m going to do an interview about a record that\u2019s 50 years old.\u201d I never thought that would happen! I just wanted to be in the studio.<\/p>\n

Click HERE for more of our conversation, this time focusing on Baumann’s work with Conrad Schnitzler<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One\u2026 Certainly, if one likes Tangerine Dream, they\u2019ll appreciate Romance 76. But your debut record is different enough sonically so that it stands apart. On the record\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,64,73],"tags":[5922,2116],"class_list":["post-31212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-krautrock","category-reissue","category-vinyl","tag-peter-baumann","tag-tangerine-dream","cat-41-id","cat-43-id","cat-64-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31876,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31212\/revisions\/31876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}