

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Valentina Ivanova on Unsplash
This 3LP edition of 50 Years of Phaedra: At the Barbican is presented on triple black vinyl inside a gatefold sleeve and includes an 8-page printed booklet.
From the official Tangerine Dream website: In 1974, Phaedra redefined the landscape of electronic music. What began as an experimental session at Richard Branson’s Manor Studios in Oxfordshire became a seismic event in modern sound. Using the Moog sequencer for the first time, Tangerine Dream - then comprised of Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann - crafted an album brimming with innovation, mystery and discovery. Half a century later, Tangerine Dream performed the landmark album at London’s Barbican, reimagining it for a new era. 50 Years of Phaedra: At The Barbican captures a transcendent live performance, in which the current line-up - Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane, and Paul Frick - revisit the spirit of Phaedra with the very tools that Froese and his collaborators helped pioneer.
Part of Phaedra's magic lay in its imperfections: the original sequences were never truly quantized, their timing drifting unpredictably through the Moog's analogue circuitry. That subtle instability became part of its charm – a human pulse within the machine – yet it long left current bandleader Thorsten Quaeschning intrigued by what a fully realized version might reveal. Now, 50 years later, Tangerine Dream have revisited the work with the precision that technology once denied them. 50 Years of Phaedra: At the Barbican is the first time Phaedra has been performed fully quantized, each motif beautifully aligned with a crystalline precision previously unheard.
For over five decades, Tangerine Dream have stood as pioneers of electronic sound, shaping the evolution of ambient, film and synthesizer music. Founded in Berlin in 1967 by Edgar Froese, the group became synonymous with the "Berlin School" of electronic composition, influencing generations of artists from Jean-Michel Jarre and Depeche Mode to Radiohead and M83. Their vast catalogue spans over a hundred albums, including acclaimed film scores for Sorcerer, Risky Business and Firestarter and countless live performances that redefined what electronic music could be on stage. Universally recognized for their visionary approach to texture, atmosphere and technology, Tangerine Dream remain one of the most innovative and iconic forces in modern music.
This 3LP edition of 50 Years of Phaedra: At the Barbican is presented on triple black vinyl inside a gatefold sleeve and includes an 8-page printed booklet.
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MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and Directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
In Honor of the greatest auteur of our time, Judith is using one of her favorite quotes by him.
"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present"
David Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 15, 2025)
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch and the new The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. In October 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre, considered the biggest film event of Dallas in 2024 by Dallas Observer!
Judith Carter was in the Upscale and Luxury Hospitality Industry for most of her life. In 2004 she had a beautiful baby boy with Special Needs and put the pause on her career until 2017 to dedicate herself to him and then others, assisting and volunteering as a legal advocate ensuring the best medical care, evaluations and educations for Special Needs children and their families.
Matt and Judith were family friends for over 20 years. She was there with her family in support when his wife Jen passed away suddenly in 2006. Then just 6 weeks later while Matt was in Dallas; he and his Father, Dave, and Step-Mother, Genie, were there as support, when Judith was alone and her son received the first of many diagnoses that changed the trajectory of their lives. So it made sense in the turbulent year of 2020, Matt asked Judith to take over running the online store that has become MZS.press. The rest as they say is, "Their"-story.