artist: Christopher Franke country of origin: Germany style(s): Ambient trance, Berlin-school, psychedelia, electro-pop essential releases: The London Concert (1992, Sonic Images)

Christopher Franke's departure from ambient icons Tangerine Dream in 1988 was the last of that band's significant personnel losses. Originally a drummer when he joined the band, he soon dropped the drumsticks in favour of pioneering the development and use of sequencers. Working at first with the Moog synthesiser and later with digital synths and samplers, he crucially provided the band's machine with its rhythmic heart. Of his departure Franke told biographer Mark Prendergast: "I needed a creative break...we did not have the time to explore our minds for fresh ideas or explore the great [new] computer instruments we had at our disposal. Kids with much more time than us but less experience began producing better sounds and I feel our quality was dropping". Many Tangerine Dream fans would agree. Colleague Edgar Froese carried on with the name but by the 90's the rot had well and truly set in.

Not that the break led to the kind of creative renaissance some fans might have hoped for. Franke relocated from Germany to California, determined to keep making his living from music. Today he is probably best known as a composer of TV and film soundtracks but disappointingly his solo albums have seen little in the way of great releases. His debut Pacific Coast Highway (1992) suffers from a surfeit of lightweight new age pop and polite relaxation muzak which has dogged most of his non-soundtrack output ever since. His electro-orchestral soundtrack albums for productions like the sci-fi TV drama Babylon 5 are slick and functional but rarely compelling when removed from the images.

Which leaves his wonderful second album, the retro-flavoured London Concert. The contemporary sheen of its electronic instruments circa 1991 doesn't stop Franke brilliantly integrating some of the exquisite TD sounds of yore, from both the Virgin Records years and from mid 80's releases like Underwater Sunlight (1985). The tracklist is a deft blend of TD compositions and the better moments from his own debut release. Most of it plays like a long, exotic, multi-episode epic and Franke's bubbling, polyrhythmic sequencer work binds it all together. By turns urgent and serene, euphoric and sad, straight and surreal, The London Concert is an essential work for fans of the Berlin-school sound.

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