Sphinx Lightning (19:56) takes up the second side of the original 1983 album, Hyperborea. The album was Tangerine Dream's thirtenth studio album and their last with Virgin. An instrumental, of course, it begins with a slow section followed by a quicker one, then a more ethereal slow part which moves to a part where an animal like cry features. Things then pick up for a more upbeat, rhythmic section before the final upbeat one follows and a final animal cy like end. Some versions divide the track into five sections (00:00 - (Section 1) 2:52; 02:52 - (Section 2) 6:06; 08:58 - (Section 3) 3:47; 12:45 - (Section 4) 3:55; 16:40 - (Section 5) 3:16). Hyperborea was a word the Greeks used for a distant region in the north. A sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, the haunches of a lion and the wings of a bird. According to Greek myth, she challenges those who encounter her to answer a riddle and kills and eats them when they fail to do so. This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus.
Sphinx Lightning was a British Army wartime project on Salisbury Plain involving the testing of the new remote control Mk VII Churchill Crocodiles armed with flamethrowers and machine guns.
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