Prog rock at a cosmic scale: Rick Wakeman's The Red Planet

The so far rather surreal 2020 can bring some epic delights, too - and it seems one of them is the new studio album by the keyboard legend Rick Wakeman and his band,  The English Rock Ensemble.

One never knows what might be released by this veritable institution of progressive rock, as Wakeman has amply demonstrated his ability to travel effortlessly across many genres and styles. Over the thankfully many years of his compositional and keyboard wizardry, we have heard everything from vast choral-symphonic epics to energetic instrumental rock to solo piano gems to tranquil, even ethereal,  soundscapes.

This album's music is quintessential Wakeman, of the kind we haven't heard for some years. Every  phrasing, every ornamenting of the lead lines on the keyboard, the gear changes, the epic, even majestic, passages, the juxtaposition of very different musical layers that all work together splendidly in true Yes manner... 

Whether one arrives at this album with novice ears & eyes, without any exposure to Rick Wakeman's monumental discography, or as an avid prog-rock fan with shelves bending under the weight of his and other prog luminaries' albums... either way The Red Planet will highly probably prove to be a thoroughly satisfying listening experience.

Wakeman's landmark concept albums always had majestic overtures, the very first chords and musical phrases inevitably grabbing the listeners' attention - as the great Italian Baroque composers have done. Unlike some of the latter, Wakeman always knew how to continue in captivating ways... 

The opening track, Ascraeus Mons is an overture that is worthy successor of those fondly remembered Wakeman albums' grand openings. Imposing organ chords are quickly followed by splendidly fluid synth lead motif, with the usual (and expected) virtuosity set the scene for the album - but we are treated to a through-and-through rock guitar solo, too. 

Tharsis Tholus gives the listener a chance to have an initial repose, before we have sudden changes of gear, direction, and even tonality in true Yes fashion... and then fast-paced, typically ornamented organ and Moog melodies come in. Wakeman really, truly, rocks off with his inimitable Moog solo. The freshness of the music is remarkable, so is the almost superhuman keyboard skill that almost absurdly hasn't been affected by the passing of many decades... 

Arsia Mons keeps the energy levels high, opening with an abrasive and spirited riff, punctuated by epic drumming... before it suddenly gives way to an atmospheric passage of quasi-poetic beauty. The phased synth background with the gentle layers of notes on top of it make it quite dreamy, before the energy  return with intertwined drums, keyboards, guitars flying off again. Another quiet passage brings the guitar to the forefront, with organs just gently underpinning it until the phased synth pads arrive again for a dreamy finale... making the whole track float off into some kind of cosmic tranquility...

Olympus Mons shifts gear again, we jump from introspective dreamy sound waves to fast fingers running up and down on the organ keyboard, chasing the fiery drums, with guitars speedily circling around the central musical motifs... This then transitions to a majestic organ-heavy chorus of an almost anthem-like feel, followed by a super-tight good and proper rock affair, with riffs and a synth lead that are utterly impossible not to do some head-bobbing to. 

The North Plain moves us into the realm of mysterious ambiental layers of sounds, tiny musical motifs hovering in the sonci textures conjured by Wakeman... until it transitions into another eminently head-bobbing passage... Catchy and tight riffs provide the structure for an organ solo that just brings the ceiling down even before that, oh yes, that Moog sound returns for a fiery solo. As in previous tracks, we rapidly switch gears - we are suddenly back in an eerie and almost spooky soundworld, until the Hammond organ again throws us into a world of motion and light.

Pavonis Mons is again a highly animated and animating track, with a precise riff preparing the scene for those Mellotron strings and Moog leads that enchant any Wakeman fan. The melodic content is, once again, extremely catchy - with improvised ornamentations that are instanty recognisable in style. The instrumental arrangements show that no sonic colouring is out of bounds, as in the middle of a high-flying rock discourse we have piano, too having a heck of a dialogue with the Moog. 

South Pole fades in with a wash of sounds, giving way to yet another captivating melody that glides effortlessly above layers of synth sounds and laid-back drumming. It has just the right tempo and choice of softer synth sounds to make it a dreamy, yet purposefully flowing track. The synths give way to a solo piano passage of superb and delicate beauty, which feels like a calm sonic oasis... before the track builds up, lifting us again with the synth rich pads and catchy lead motifs.

Valles Marineris opens with a menacing military march-like rhythmic pattern, as the god of war deserves in a way...  The guitar and percussion take centre stage initially, with synths providing a circular melodic thread that carries the whole structure forward. This track, too manages to build up effortlessly into anthem-like passages, and one could be completel forgiven for finding oneself whistling along, too... After trumpets, fiery Moog, and thundering drums, the rich arrangements allow the piano to shine again, before the catchy melody returns with a flute-like synth lead. The structural thinking is again evident, as the track is as perfect ending to the album as perfect grand opening the first track was.

It is a highly cohesive and structurally admirably constructed album, with a consistent quality throughout. The eight tracks combine into what some of the best of concept albums are known for: an adventurous musical journey through many moods and mental images, during which the tracks feel inseparable from each other. 

In a world of sound snippets and random playlist shuffling, The Red Planet definitely stands apart and works best as a whole - as an album. 

Juno To Jupiter: a vast musical journey by Vangelis

 

The concept album, inspired by NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, and recorded in collaboration with the superlative soprano Angela Gheorghiu, has had a turbulent adventure even before its official release.

Vangelis fans could acknowledge with a contented smile that the entire album is absolutely unmistakably the work of the Greek master, with entirely new tracks.

Not only that each track has, as it will become apparent in the review below, signature sounds and technical aspects we encountered on some of the most fondly remembered Vangelis releases of previous decades, but... each track perfectly expresses its respective title, and they perfectly blend together into a truly epic musical adventure. 

It is considered "old-fashioned" nowadays in electronic music, which is understood by many to be just EDM, to have a proper and programmatic approach to composition. Well, Vangelis, once again, approaches the album's concepts with meticulously developed and executed compositional intent. 

Each track is a musical description and an enthralling artistic interpretation of that track's theme - and it all fits into a phenomenal and truly epic journey through time and space. It takes us from references to ancient mythology to the vast spectacles staged by the giant of our Solar System.

As this is a Vangelis album, this is not a cold, cerebral space ambient work. 

Even if it had been, and even if it had resorted to classic space-rock means, one could still point out that, well, most of those musical means were actually invented and made instantly recognisable by Vangelis...

However, this is a passionate, epic, genuinely enchanting record, with seemingly superhuman imagination and compositional skills taking us from the most serene and ethereal harmonies to the most thundering unleashings of cosmic forces one can possibly imagine. 

Until its September release, hopefully the below track-by-track review can be a useful taster for what awaits the avid fans and those who may not have heard previously Vangelis's works.

1. Atlas's Push
The references to ancient mythology and space exploration run alongside each other throughout the entire album. The opening track refers to the Atlas V rocket that lifted the Juno space probe beyond our atmosphere, named after the Titan who had to hold, for all eternity, the celestial heavens.

The menacing electronic pulsations underpin mission control commentary... and when latter gives way to an evocation of outer space, we are suddenly propelled into the swells of characteristic sounds we may have heard last time on Antarctica and the Alexander soundtracks.

This is not a depiction of Juno leaving our atmosphere via some abstract and clichéd space ambient sound painting - this is the emotion, the exaltation that the humans who created and launched this probe must have felt.

Once again, Vangelis is the Great Romantic of human endeavour and exploration - depicting the human emotion rather than the abstract cerebral aspects of the central theme.

2. Inside Our Perspectives
This is a youthful, jazzy track of a laid-back, but distinctly head-bobbing, character. Vintage synth leads fly above pulsating waves of electronic percussion and bass arpeggios, with exquisite care taken in sound design, too.

The track induces in the listener a sense of dynamism, expectation, and excitement that must have surrounded the entire mission.

3. Out In Space

Again, we could have been treated to some space ambient collage of sounds, but Vangelis choses to depict in sounds a sense of awe. We have here the unmistakable brass and string sections that enchanted us on  the Alexander soundtrack and during The Thread ballet score.

Great swells of mighty chords are punctuated by crystalline piano arpeggios, this is again about our human emotions as we follow the mission from our tiny blue dot, as Carl Sagan described our cosmic home. 

The Earthly majestic sounds are underscored by a quite contrasting and eminently electronic sound pattern that, as a simple but effective artistic solution, manages to describe the alien strangeness of outer space.

4. Juno's Quiet Determination

It would not be a Vangelis record if it had not seized on the ancient mythological possibilities offered by the central theme.

Bouncy, staccato patterns of electronic pulsations are providing a shifting structure above which lush chords, ethereal vocal sounds, crystalline harp and glockenspiel notes start to hover.

And then there is an ethnic woodwind motif, which manages to sound ancient and futuristic, giving a mysterious and timeless feel to the music. As Ridley Scott said about the soundtrack to 1492 Conquest Of Paradise, Vangelis is uniquely able to sound ancient and contemporary at the same time...

5. Jupiter's Intuition

Orchestral swells and ominous timpani evoke mental imagery of Jupiter, the almighty deity and the giant of our Solar System. 

The thundering crescendo that elevates us to emotional heights is suddenly restrained, with a brief ethereal repose… before tidal waves of sounds return. 

Walls of our listening room swiftly vanish, we are in the realm of vast stretches of space and time.

6. Juno's Power

We are again elevated, propelled up and up on the emotional scale, with swells of grand string and brass chords supported by thundering staccato patterns from the electronic orchestra... 

If we recall Heaven & Hell or parts of the colossal Mythodea, well, we can again realise that only Vangelis can depict the Cosmic in this way with his unmistakable tuned timpani punctuating those lush textures.

Huge forces are unleashed here, but they never cross into the realm of uncomfortable. There is a majestic, but seductively simple, melody that appears above the vast sonic landscape, making this another hugely uplifting track.

7. Space’s Mystery Road

A playful, and once again a surprisingly jazzy track, with a laid-back electronic percussion pattern that provides solid structure for the playful piano improvisations, latter being sometimes punctuated by Vangelis’s instantly recognisable  timpani. 

One has to make a reference to Albedo 0.39, as Vangelis treats us to cosmic jazz-rock motifs during our cosmic journey, as he had done several decades ago on that classic space-rock album.

8. In The Magic Of Cosmos

Would we be hearing some predictable new age-ish electronic texture to evoke what the title of this track expresses? Perhaps yes, if this were not a Vangelis album...

Instead, we have an achingly beautiful, uplifting and expansive, but astonishingly economical motif of just three notes… brought to life by an epic orchestral arrangement. Just three notes build the poignant melodic motif that makes us feel as if we are expanding beyond our physical body’s confines.

Again, this is the Cosmos translating all its mysteries into a few sounds that we, infinitesimal beings, can just about grasp with our limited senses.

9. Juno's Tender Call

The track marks the first appearance of the sublime Angela Gheorghiu on this album. Her celestial vocals, which are intertwined with the vast orchestral tides, feel effortlessly improvised. 

One cannot imagine a more splendid evocation of Juno, the ancient goddess, than this blend of almost otherworldly vocals and exquisite synthesizer textures.

10. Juno's Echoes

We move from the ancient to more abstract and mysterious realms, this being an eminently electronic meditation. Melodic fragments appear and reverberate in those signature Vangelis sonic spaces, amongst gentle bell-like sounds. 

This is another peaceful track where the melodic motifs feel as if they were playfully improvised, but they are eminently restrained and highly effective in their beautiful simplicity.

11. Juno’s Ethereal Breeze

Angelic vocal textures conjure up the imagery suggested by the track’s title. Ethereal might become an over-used word in describing passages of this album, but this track's title is perfectly fitting.

Swirls and crystalline twinklings of sounds embellish the choral notes, preparing us for another very visual track that follows in our cosmic journey.

12. Jupiter’s Veil Of Clouds

Another immersive track, perfectly prepared by the previous composition - we glide into the mysterious world of Jupiter's clouds, we shift from mythological references to the scientific mission of exploring a fascinating alien world.

Vangelis is stunningly able to depict musically both the fragile translucent cloud formations and unimaginable atmospheric forces unleashed by the planet. The musical solution is elegant and effective, once again.

Synthesizer arpeggios, with very short, almost spiky sounds, are contrasted by floating, lingering notes on a piano - the Earthly meets the otherworldly. The pulsations get stronger, the timpani sounds appear with ominous rumbling and thundering… There are vast Cosmic forces at work here, not just ethereal and mysterious beauty.

13. Hera / Juno Queen of the Gods

After we have been shaken and stirred by Jupiter's unimaginably vast and powerful atmospheric currents, after we managed to marvel at its strange beauty thanks to Vangelis’s’ sonic wizardry, we land in an ocean of splendid tranquility.

The gentle notes from woodwind and harp-like synthesizer sounds melt, this really is the right word, they melt into gentle string textures - which, in turn, give way to soaring vocals by Angela Gheorghiu. 

Hera, and her Roman mythology equivalent Juno, are evoked here with reverence.

14. Zeus Almighty

The longest track on the album is dedicated to, whom else, the almighty Zeus of course, Jupiter’s equivalent in the mythology of Vangelis’s homeland. It is as if we are taking a journey in the mind of the Greek supreme deity, before we move back into Roman mythology with the following track. 

This is also a journey into the tumultous unleashing of forces that the planet shows us in unprecedented footage acquired by the Juno probe.

For those who have seen the documentary Vangelis And The Journey To Ithaka, perhaps one could describe the track as something like that literally breathtaking improvisation we can see in the film. The track feels improvised, with a firm structure but many gear changes, and an almost superhuman ease in going from translucent, fragile, ethereal sounds to thundering orchestral unleashings of immense forces.

For the technically minded, one side-note would be that we can hear those phenomenal and highly characteristic string patches we have marvelled at during the period marked by the albums Mask, Soil Festivities, and Antarctica.

One can almost see Vangelis unleashing these forces with impossibly effortless gestures on the stacks of keyboards. We hear Zeus's capricious temper, his human escapades, his dark and luminous moods... A very human deity, with an inner world as turbulent as the mighty planet's.

15. Jupiter Rex

The track is a natural continuation of the previous one, with thundering timpani and vast, ominous choirs… 

It feels almost as if we have moved seamlessly from  the ancient Greek to the Roman evocations of the supreme deity.

At the same time, both tracks conjure images of the colossal forces the largest planet in our Solar System is capable of demonstrating on Juno's unprecedented images.

16. Juno’s Accomplishments

Angela Gheorghiu’s ethereal vocals provide us with a respite after the mighty sonic tides we heard in the previous two tracks. 

Harp arpeggios and gentle piano notes are effortlessly gliding over waves and swells of characteristic string chords, whilst the vocal gives this track, too an almost mystical feel.

17. Apo 22

From timeless chapters of ancient mythology, from boundless expanses of the Cosmos, we suddenly return to Earth for a moment. 

We hear NASA mission control again, marking the joyous moment of the Juno probe successfully executing the crucial Apo-22 manoeuvre, which avoided the long flight through Jupiter's shadow that would have depleted the solar powered probe's batteries. 

The voice recording is infused with shimmering synthesizer sounds, giving the brief intermission a suitable spacey feel.

18. In Serenitatem

Only at the end of China, during the mesmerising finale entitled The Summit, and in the last movement of Mask could once one hear such ethereal sounds...

The fragile, translucent sonic elements are conjured up via the inimitable Vangelis alchemy of choral and string synthesizer patches, we are hearing evocations of cosmic waves, a sense of vastness and tranquility, made all the more atmospheric by electronic chimes as if they were emanating from some crystals from the depths of Jupiter.

The track fades into total silence and proves that once again, Vangelis has an unsurpassable ability to capture a sense of cosmic vastness via the most economic and restrained palette of sounds.

If one was mesmerised by the sublime finale of China, then the finale of this album will definitely have the same effect on that listener.

Vangelis has, again, taken us on a quintessentially human journey through near-impossible to comprehend distances of space, to colossal scenes effortlessly created by Jupiter... Once again, it is an ode to human endeavour, human ingenuity.

As the Rosetta album demonstrated, and Juno To Jupiter makes it all the more evident, Vangelis can surprise, mesmerise, and stun us with a musical and sonic inventiveness that knows no fatigue even in 2020... after so many decades of relentless and astonishing creativity.