Three O' Clock High (2023 Remastered Re-Issue) UK ImportTangerine Dream

Stylishly directed by Phil Joanou (U2’s ‘Rattle And Hum’, ‘State Of Grace’, ‘Final Analysis’), the film is more Scorsese than John Hughes, starring Casey Siemaszko as a nerd forced into an afterschool rumble with a psychopath bully, played by Richard Tyson. The film became a cult hit on home video, and is helped enormously by its moody, dynamic, pulsating score by German synthesizer legends TANGERINE DREAM, who also score sountracks for: ‘Sorcerer’, ‘Thief’, ‘Risky Business’, and may more.

Director Joanou was desperate for the band to score the film and was overjoyed when they agreed: “The Berlin sessions with Edgar Froese and Paul Haslinger were a (tangerine) dream come true,” he writes in the liner notes for this release. “At their studio next to the Berlin Wall, we worked for several weeks crafting each cue… The things they could coax out of a keyboard, as well as guitars, bass, and drums, were just incredible. I was blown away.”

Out of circulation for decades, ‘Thee O’Clock High’ s presented in remastered form for this long overdue release, with TANGERINE DREAM’s 15 tracks supplemented by additional music by Sylvester Levay (when the filmmakers needed more cues and couldn’t afford to return to Berlin) and the prominent song by Jim Walker entitled: ‘Something To Remember Me By’.