Tangerine Dream’s ‘Miracle Mile’
LP / CD
An evocative and pulsing 40 minutes plus of vintage hi-gloss Tangerine Dream created for the cult American apocalyptic thriller Miracle Mile. Split into 11 tense pieces, it’s a synth powered treasure, it’s motorik drive and spacious orchestral melody lines make for a breathtaking ride of timeless emotion.
Featuring the classic line up of the late, great Edgar Froese and Paul Haslinger, it nods sequentially to John Carpenter’s early ‘80s musical masterpieces for Assault On Precinct 13 and Escape From New York that were of course in turn inspired by Tangerine Dream’s earlier works.
On its original CD and cassette release in 1989, it was celebrated as a vintage movie-saving set, while later it was heralded as one of The Fader magazine’s 11 Brilliant Tangerine Dream soundtrack moments. And, it’s more recently been acclaimed as “one of the strongest in concept for any film they have done. The movie has a high degree of tension and the score by TD does just the trick.” (All Music)
While the movie-centred Slant magazine reckoned: “Tangerine Dream contributes the urgent, pulsing score, which dates Miracle Mile instantly, but in the best possible way. The electronic music group was like the grindhouse yin to John Williams’s multiplex yang.”
The 1989 movie directed by Steve De Jarnatt received short shrift on release but has become a key decade-defining statement of the state of a collapsing nation in retrospect.
“I wrote the script for Miracle Mile late at night – blasting the Sorcerer soundtrack non-stop. 10 years later – after struggling to get the film financed, shot, and edited – I thought there would be no chance I would be able to get my ultimate choice to score it with them too. But we sent the rough cut over to them – they dug the film and God bless Hemdale (who produced the film) that even though we were a very low budget – they stepped up to engage Tangerine Dream’s services. I was doubly blessed to be able to go over to Vienna and work with Edgar and Paul until we had the whole show cued and locked for the mix. I am not even sure the film works at all without their sublime music – the ticking clock, the elegiac melancholy of love at the end of the world. Among the best experiences of my life.”– Steve De Jarnatt
“Miracle Mile is the result of the talent and complicity of Haslinger and Froese… among one of the best of Tangerine Dream.”(Guts Of Darkness)
