Old timers of this blog will no doubt be astonished to see such a post but - I admit it - there was a time when Tangerine Dream was one of the bands that occupied my ears and afternoons (and those after-prep chats with my chum Matthew plus his chocolate digestives). We even made the trek down to Hammersmith (am I right?) to hear them play a set largely based around Tangram.

Round about 1979 album covers for Force Majeure and Cyclone seemed about as cutting edge as you could imagine (punk must have been going on somewhere else and with someone else - but where was I?).

Hearing it again now in the car - I picked up this compilation for 6 euros at Media Markt this afternoon - it seems terribly dated and the sort of music you could knock out on an iMac with GarageBand over a weekend. Funny to think of the banks of synths they used to play behind. Nowadays, a few laptops would suffice.

But that's not the point. I wanted the synthesised rush of nostalgia, that particular thin glass percussion sound they used, the cheesy-signalled-a-mile-off climaxes. O long scarves and your Dad's old overcoat! O fusty teenage bedrooms! O acne besprinkled cheeks! O stylus-pocked vinyl and scratch and hiss! Those weren't the days, my friends ...