Edgar Froese—founding member of the vastly influential German band Tangerine Dream and a remarkable soundtrack composer and ambient musician—passed away January 20 in Vienna from a pulmonary embolism. He was 70.

As keyboardist for Tangerine Dream, Froese helped to establish them as innovators of an infernal brand of kosmische rock on early albums like Electronic Meditation, Alpha Centauri, Zeit, and Atem. The group gradually evolved into more of a spacious, synthesizer-heavy project, but they retained their capacity to create extremely deep and unsettling soundscapes on LPs like Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Stratosfear. Froese also played a key role in Tangerine Dream's soundtrack success, contributing to the outstanding scores Thief, Sorcerer, and Risky Business.

During his prolific solo career, Froese remained the master of the arpeggio that connoted both menace and bliss and a conjuror of exceptionally tactile and elementally evocative synth tones, which set the bar high for thousands of ambient and new-age producers who followed in his wake, as exemplified by Aqua, Epsilon in Malaysian Pale, Macula Transfer, Ages, and The Stuntman. RIP, Edgar Froese.