Tangerine Dream: Edgar Froese (6 & 12-string guitars, harmonica, piano, Mellotron, Moog synthesizer, bass); Chris Franke (Mellotron, harpsichord, organ, Moog synthesizer, percussion, loop); Peter Baumann (electric piano, Mellotron, Moog synthesizer, programming). Recorded at Audio Studios, Berlin, Germany in August 1976. One of Tangerine Dream's earliest and most classic recordings, STRATOSFEAR's Mellotron-soaked melodies have not only found their way into samplers and DJ repertoires worldwide--the band have also even revisited the album's plangent themes in their successive soundtrack compositions, such as RISKY BUSINESS. In 1976, the band (Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, and Peter Baumann) was still creating music as imagistic, fantastic and phantasmagorical as its accompanying track titles (The Big Sleep in Search of Hades, 3 AM At the Border of the Marsh from Okefenokee). The vast washes of Moog, Mellotron, rhythm computers, and Fender Rhodes piano that grace 3 AM still sound like they originated from the seventh circle of Hell. Their sheer alien-ness seems to bespeak music made not of this earth. The title track's hovering, extraterrestrial sequencer hypno-pulse continues to resonate in today's electronica.