Vangelis • Heaven and Hell
Seeking more Vangelis, I found vinyl copies of L'Apocalypse Des Animaux (1973), Opéra Sauvage (1979), Antarctica (1983) and Blade Runner (1982/1994) and thoroughly enjoyed them all. From 1968’s End of the World, as a member of Aprhodite’s Child, to this year’s solo-piano release Nocturne: The Piano Album, Vangelis (Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou) has forged a singular path through music’s intricate forest. Not the first to layer an electronic soundtrack to a movie (that distinction could arguably be applied to Louise and Bebe Baron’s work for the 1956 sci-fi flick Forbidden Planet), he nonetheless changed forever the nature of the genre. Widely imitated but never equaled, he has embraced the technology of the day and stands as a unique creator of unreal sound worlds, ranging from the annoyingly aggressive to the heart-rendingly sublime. Heaven and Hell introduced an entirely different side of Vangelis’s music. It was the first album recorded at his newly established 16-track (later 24-track) Nemo studios in London and his first for RCA. A relatively early work for Vangelis and incorporating a chorus-with-orchestra format, it laid out themes that foreshadowed future efforts. "Movement 3" was used to serve as theme music to the Emmy Award-winning series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. This show, launched in 1980 and hosted by the late Carl Sagan, became one of the most widely watched PBS series in television history. Broadcast weekly, it brought the music of other Vangelis’s albums from the 1970s, including Albedo 0.39, Spiral, Ignacio, Beaubourg and China, to a vast international viewing audience, turning his name into a household word. "Bacchanale" opens the album and it is indeed that. Of all the music I’ve heard over the years, I found the four and a half minutes of that piece and the eight-minute "Symphony to the Powers B" (Movements 1 and 2), easily the most annoying. Its bombast is droll, and the riff, enhanced with the English Chamber Choir and repeated ad nauseam, saw me counting down the time until it ended. Enough! Movement 3 from "Symphony to the Powers B" saved the day. Here was Vangelis at his most lyrical, dreamy best. It’s no wonder it was appropriated for the Cosmos TV series. Side one’s closer, "So Long Ago, So Clear," a collaboration with singer Jon Anderson from the group Yes, is marvelous. Side two continues the suite with "Intestinal Bat," a mysterious cacophony of sounds, most of which would not be heard in nature. A hurried, rather conventional, "Needles & Bones" follows, leading into the two-part "12 O'clock." Part chant, part nightmare, it brings out the best and worst of Vangelis’s music -- the bombastic and dramatic contrasted with the understated and poetic. Fittingly, Heaven and Hell ends with "A Way," an expressive conclusion to a wild, thunderous musical ride courtesy of the musician and composer. I both loved and hated it. Heaven and hell, indeed. Speakers Corner has done its usual superb job on this
release. The laminated gatefold jacket faithfully re-creates the artwork of the original,
including inside, along with the credits and the black-and-white photos of Vangelis at
work. Interestingly, Speakers Corner has opted for the orange RCA record label instead of
the black. The sticker attached to the shrink-wrap proclaims this LP an all-analog affair:
sourced from original analog master tapes and mastered in the analog domain. The
Pallas-pressed 180-gram record was as quiet as the audience at a Keith Jarrett concert,
with impeccable surfaces, and it sounded great. |
