Rubycon

1. Rubycon, Part One 17:18
2. Rubycon, Part Two 17:35
Total running time 34:53

The title Rubycon relates to a story about Julius Caesar crossing the river Rubycon in 49 BC. He did it for “all or nothing”, running into an unstoppable war. Hence the phrase “crossing the Rubycon” points out that a unreversable decision is made — a point of no return.

Tangerine Dream entered the Manor Studio again in 1975 to record an album on which they developed a new kind of electronic rhythm. Rubycon featured much the same instrumentation as Phaedra. It also showed a certain distance to mainstream rock, in that it was a suite in two parts, taking up two entire sides of the album — as did Mike Oldfield’s mid-’70s albums Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn which were released by Virgin as well.

Details:
Recording date January 1975
Recording site(s) The Manor (Shipton-on-Cherwell)
Recording engineer(s) Mike Glossop
Composer(s) Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Musician(s) Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Producer(s) Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann

In 1995 Virgin re-released the album on CD in the so-called “Definitive Edition” series, featuring the original front cover artwork. The sound quality of this release, using the Super Bit Mapping technology, is probably the best up to now.

In 2001, Rubycon became the first (and by now only) album by Tangerine Dream to be released on Super Audio CD (SACD) by Virgin.