Vangelis – Albedo 0.39 – 1975

[Roland Bru]

Vangelis – Albedo 0.39 – 1975
Vangelis started out in a Greek prog rock group by the name of Aphrodite's child. They scored some hits because of their very special singer, Demis Roussos. In the early 1970’s they broke up and went for their respective solo careers. Demis Roussos scored some major hits (Rain and tears, Forever and ever). He’s a great singer but did not always have the capability to select the right material.

Vangelis became the Greek Mike Oldfield: instrumental albums (except for some robotic voices), long songs and composing, arranging, playing and producing everything by himself. This particular album dates from 1975 and is spacey in its song titles and overall imagery.

To explain the album’s title I refer to the liner notes: Albedo describes the reflecting power of a planet or other non-luminous body. A perfect reflector would have an Albedo of 100%. The earths Albedo is 39% or 0.39. Calling the album Earth would have been easier, probably too easy and perhaps this name had been taken already.

Generally speaking this is music of a soothing nature, somewhat ambient like Eno. Its goal is not to make you dance or hum along but to create a mood and perhaps even to transport you to another level of consciousness. Songs such as Freefall, Sword of Orion, Alpha sound relaxing. Some songs, such as Main theme sound more aggressive, but in the absence of guitars it’s not aggressive in the rocking sense of the word, it sounds more like something from a movie soundtrack, played during a particularly exciting scene (hot pursuit, buildings crashing etc). Nucleogenesis sounds somewhat threatening, courtesy of the organ sounds at the beginning and ends up something like Jean Michel Jarre.