The sage of sonic Universes: R.I.P. Vangelis (1943-2022)

 

A kid, aged eight and a half, is mesmerised by an episode of something called Cosmos, made by a superb scientist (Carl Sagan) he never heard of, airing on the national TV channel of a Communist country in the grips of a dictator, at the end of the 1970s... 

To see this on the propaganda-saturated, unwatchable TV channel, which was only airing anything for a few hours per day, was a stunning experience in itself. 

But the little kid got hooked, quasi-obsessed, with the main theme of the series. The stars and galaxies were flowing in the vast Cosmos, accompanied by a piano motif, then the music built into an orchestral and electronic ocean, finishing off with celestial choirs...

It was nothing the kid heard before and it was, at the same time, Earthly, passionate, sublime, and otherworldly. Somebody called Vangelis was listed as composer. 

In 2022, an almost fifty-one year old former kid, with vast music collection ranging from 12th century Early Music to space ambient electronica, is in disbelief... as the man who triggered his interest in music that transcends any categorisation, any temporal and spatial limit, is gone. 

Vangelis Papathanassiou, the Greek composer, multi-instrumentalist, pioneer of synthesizer music of a unique kind, has passed away aged 79 in France, on the 17 May 2022. 

The obituaries inundating the international press at the moment, hours after the announcement, are making ostinato-like repeated references to his Oscar winning film score for Chariots of Fire, to his era-defining and endlessly imitated, sub-genre creating soundtrack to the legendary Blade Runner, to his trailblazing years in the prog rock band Aphrodite's Child, to his collaborations with myriad musicians, to his many other soundtrack works.

But there are aspects of his life and music that even in 2022 are unique or, at best, very seldom found in contemporary music. 

Vangelis never cared about what instruments made the unimaginable range of sounds he used. He stated many times that he "happened" to use synthesizers as he just found it easier to create the previously unheard sounds he imagined. He thoroughly rejected the terms electronic music or electronic musician - these labels, as his discography proves, were meaningless. 

He proved that not the tools, but their uses matter - synthesizers never sounded so warm, passionate, epic as in his creations at a time where countless others were diving into electronic styles that put the technology at the centre. Some to this day rage endless debates online about nonsensical sub-divisions of synthesizer categories and define themselves by the tools they use. Vangelis was and remained the antithesis of all that.

Vangelis never cared about genres - and could instinctively inhabit, recreate, convey the spirit of countless historic periods and ethnic tradisions. Time and space seized to exist, countless ancient traditions, styles, genres and sub-genres met seamlessly in his music... As Ridley Scott once said, Vangelis could effortlessly sound Medieval and contemporary at the same time. 

And here comes the clencher. 

The man who composed everything from progressive rock to jazz and jazz rock, from African tribal music to Celtic ballads, from Far Eastern lullabies to space ambient, from Medieval choral and instrumental music to fiery and Earth-shattering cosmic electronic epics... never formally learnt music, never read or wrote music. 

His Direct system invented in the later 80s allowed him even more what he was doing before: largely improvised creations emanated from his sonic wonderland... with zero regard to the contorted artificial categorisations the music press tried to squeeze his compositions into. 

His discography is impossible, it cannot exist - yet it does. Not long ago this blog posted a quick "inventory" of the utterly mindblowing range of styles, genres, and sub-genres he composed in.

It could not have been composed by one man, it is just impossible that a single person could span millennia and tens of thousands of miles of musical traditions and styles. Yet it was composed by a formally never musically trained man. 

What it meant to listen to his musical Universe during a Communist dictatorship, as a sonic escapism filled with wonder, is impossible to describe for the former little kid who got blown away by the main theme from Cosmos. 

What it meant in subsequent decades to discover the truly limitless sonic Universe Vangelis could create... is also impossible to describe.

May He rest in peace, reunited with the music of the Universe, which, as he often humbly said, was merely channeled by him. He maintained that he never composed anything... he just managed to hear what the Universe was creating.

Thank you, Grand Master of wondrous sounds. 

From risk-taking imagination to formulaic templates: an irreversible trend in Hollywood film scores?

 

Jerry Goldsmith conducting

There was a time, like the somewhat distant 1950s, when a film intended for mainstream market dared to wildly experiment with its soundtrack. 

One enduring example is The Forbidden Planet (1956), which featured a truly ground-breaking  experimental soundtrack. Nothing like that was heard before in a Hollywood film. Further examples from subsequent years abound, and perhaps the secret is that the directors in those cases had more control over the end product than in the case of current (wannabe or actual) blockbusters...

Omen was not exactly an elitist art house venture either, but the late Jerry Goldsmith was given the freedom to experiment... and he did. Who could forget the sheer genius of using a repetitive, whispering but utterly menacing choral motif as the sound of the demonic dogs' breath? 

There was a time when John Carpenter was tinkering in rather superb way with his synths, we had William Friedkin resorting to progressive rock visionary Mike Oldfield or used the sonic imaginings of trailblazing electronic music giant Tangerine Dream. 

When Terminator shook the movie theatres with its footsteps, it did that with a musical backdrop provided by Brad Fiedel. He relied on the very early incarnations of digital sampling technology to produce many of the movie's signature sounds, too. He even had the audacity of using an aggressively pitch-shifted cello sample for one otherworldly sound that now everyone recognises as the ominous cue for the appearance of the Terminator.

Michael Mann, firmly rooted in mainstream and popular genres, had a look at his music collection - and then used everything from Kitaro to Michael Brook to Moby in the soundtracks of his famous thrillers. Think of the music, and its effectiveness, as used in Manhunter and Heat, to name just two key examples...

Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott brought in Kitaro and Vangelis, David Lynch pitched some ideas about a certain TV series to Angelo Badalamenti... 

And then... Hollywood, and not just, had a severe bout of selective amnesia. 

They, and soon everybody who was attempting to replicate successful-looking movie recipes, forgot what film soundtracks could be like - and stuck to some admittedly charming and successful solutions. These recipes that were then endlessly repeated by endless series of imitators, even big names succumbing to the charm of the found and tested formulae.

To say that it is a sound "expected by audiences" is like saying, with similar disregard for the causality chain, that Alex DeLarge expected to be a good lad in Clockwork Orange. If not brainwashed, we have been auditory cortex-washed by the omnipresent 'norm' that certain compositional and instrumental arrangement recipes have become.

It may rattle many cages if one drops Hans Zimmer's name here. Not that he is the problem, but what happened to his highly successful compositional formulae remains a perfect example.

Many may not recall how experimental and cross-genres composer he used to be. Maybe it is worth revisiting his soundtracks for Rain Man, Thelma & Louise, or Crimson Tide... or even some parts of Gladiator. None of them were intended to be art house movies with experimental scores... They were squarely aimed at the mainstream market, but Zimmer had vastly experimented with exotic ranges of sounds and arrangements. 

Apart from a few moments of absolute genius, e.g. S.T.A.Y from the soundtrack of Interstellar (a track that had flavours of Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, seasoned by a pinch of Max Richter), there is a Zimmer recipe that has become a template for what we hear in movies. Using the orchestra for rock-like riffs, staccato minimalist patterns, punctuated with electronic and/or acoustic percussion layers... it is hard to find action scenes in blockbusters that do not follow the template.

Hollywood, a hollow shadow of its former adventurous and risk-taking self, has essentially stopped and even reversed what one could call the evolution of soundtrack composing and orchestration. 

Sure, we have Clint Mansell, or Cliff Martinez, or the spellbinding maestro Thomas Newman as examples of stunning geniuses when it comes to thinking in sounds.

We have had Villeneuve taking risks in Arrival, using Johann Johannsson and Max Richter in memorable and mesmerising manner.

We may have had M83 scoring Oblivion, Daft Punk scoring the sequel to Tron, but then their not quite Earth-shattering success was perhaps a re-enforcement for the mainstream studios' perception of "let's just stick to minimalist ostinato orchestral riffs" à la Zimmer & Co.

It is as if huge majority of studios and soundtrack composers are copying the very same formulaic recipe, and then we have even Zimmer self-plagiarising in astonishing manner. Care to hear the shocking "similarities", to put it mildly, between Time from Inception and Journey To The Line from the superb The Thin Red Line?... Some even made videos directly comparing the two. 

The fear of moving outside the small world of admittedly captivating but used-to-death compositional recipes we hear in almost every single successful action or thriller movie of recent years has basically killed mainstream movie soundtracks.

"Serious" soundtrack composing with completely cross-genre and cross-technology approach can be phenomenal, and yield mainstream success. 

Should we mention at this point Blade Runner by Vangelis?

The significance and the highly representative details of the original's soundtrack are a matter of music, and specifically electronic music, history. 

However, the sequel was a superb example of what happens even in such films. 

The firing of the late and sublime Johannsson, the hiring of Zimmer to make an incredibly self-conscious, trying to avoid imitation and still ending up terribly derivative, soundtrack is a splendid example of the forces that decide what we hear in our movies nowadays.

Is it because directors are not really at the helm of the monster productions any more? Is it because vast budget blockbusters are made by committees, often pre-calculating (or so they hope) the audience reactions with (what they think is) minimising of risks?

James Cameron had quite a say in what and how he used in eminently blockbuster movies not so long ago. Famously, he decided to use for the Titanic drawing scene one of James Horner's early piano-based sketches of what became the main theme, a piece that Horner had not intended for actual use in the film. He himself was quite surprised that Cameron decided to use the piano piece in the very form that it was sent to him - and, as we know, it fitted astonishingly well for the scene in question.

If directors and those with, dare one say, artistic say in the making of mainstream movies do not regain that level of control, we shall see a further flattening of already desperately bland soundtrack compositions. Latter can sound fantastically enthralling and they shake the cinemas' walls with great effect, but they can be lethally bland musically.

Sure, bits of Transformers or Marvel movies are stirring and effective, but that does not negate the fact that they are incredibly formulaic when it comes to compositional and creative thinking. 

So Zimmer and his copyists by now are not really a cause or manifestation of a disease, they are the symptoms of a disease... and the direction in which the disease is evolving, in seemingly unstoppable manner, is clear.

Nocturne - the contemplative new album by Vangelis

After the Rosetta album that took us into outer space, and returned to a uniquely epic and passionate version of space rock we last heard some decades ago on a Vangelis album, the new studio album Nocturne is eminently intimate and terrestrial. It contains 17 tracks, with the majority being new compositions.

The record company's initial information about the upcoming release may have wished to entice certain segments of the public, as Nocturne was everywhere stated to be a "solo piano album". As it became increasingly clear that it wasn't, various outlets have backpedalled on this...

Some sites to this day obstinately misinform with statements like "for the first time Vangelis plays a grand piano on this record", which is complete and factual nonsense, full stop.

Based on the first single to see the light of day, namely the track entitled Nocturnal Promenade, it became obvious that one will be treated to piano (and sometimes piano-like) sounds pushed through copious amounts of reverb, and synthesizers, too would make an appearance.

However, to put to a side rather surprising cases of misinformation, the music on the album is bound to polarise and divide audiences - as even the early comments on e.g. Youtube have shown.

One of the major problems arises if one sees this album with nostalgia-tinted optics, or one does not treat it separately from all other Vangelis albums.

Why? Well, as it could be perfectly expected from the (overstated as it was) initial information, this was not to be an album of groundbreaking technical or musical wizardry. We have not had that for many years. Nor was it to be a dramatic and vastly orchestrated production, like some landmark albums from Vangelis's discography (note how some compared it to Rosetta and even El Greco...).

Also, Vangelis has made us quite used to changes in direction and large variations in genre and style from one album to another. As some have stated, this album feels extremely commercial, as if he had become what he criticised the most: a brand.

Well, another way to look at this is that Nocturne is actually true to a Vangelis ethos: he releases whatever he wishes, and without riding some fashion trend. We can recall how Oceanic or Portraits were received, and how much vitriol they gathered in reactions from some sections of the public.

It is interesting to hear, though, how the apparent weakness of some tracks is their key strength. One may find that Promenade has no concrete structure nor melodic direction, it is a quiet improvisation with little melodic motifs connected with musical wanderings. If one thinks of musically conveying an aimless and relaxed promenade, well, this improvised-sounding piece does exactly that... hence it is quite suggestive.

Calm renditions of  tracks like the main theme from Chariots of Fire are the re-interpretations of a composer several decades after the original. It is striking that the relationship between the new and original version is quite similar to the one between the late and the original versions of e.g.  Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. The late versions, in both cases, are completely lifted out of their original context, are more intimate and highly personal.

The reworked version of To The Unknown Man, too is achingly beautiful and intimate in its stripped-down arrangement. Once again, comparisons with the original are, by definition, rather pointless.

Something that does not work terribly well on piano is Love Theme from Blade Runner - the long, sustained, and repeated notes of the original's melodic theme, now re-arranged to sparse piano notes suspended in the air (and occasionally connected up with little arpeggios) are having a hard time to keep that seamless flow and emotion that was present in the original. Re-arranging wind instrument-based pieces with long held notes to a piano or plucked instruments-based version, too present this classic problem - and this track is no exception.

New tracks like Moonlight Reflection are characteristic Vangelis: minimalist tiny motifs built from quick ascending/descending notes are instantly catchy and playful. The melody of Through The Night Mist puts the listener in a melancholic, but not dark or sad, mood - think of the piano-centric tracks on Mythodea or El Greco (the studio album, not the soundtrack of same title).

Early Years has innocence, longing, contemplation, simple beauty. Intermezzo stands apart in its arrangement, it is indeed a track that serves as a separator of sorts between the first and second parts of the album. Longing has again a remarkably simple and delicate rendition.

Unfulfilled Desire has perhaps the most chromatic adventures and passages of genuine harmonic tension that fit nicely with the title, quite unlike the other tracks' very comfortable sound. The closing track, Pour Melia, has a splendid arrangement with a superb purity, innocence and a gentle fairy tale-like feel, something to go to sleep with at a fragile young age.

From a technical viewpoint, there was considerable debate about what sounds from what period of synth making we hear on the album. The dissonance with Vangelis's own, and remarkably consistent, ethos is again notable. Maybe we should remind ourselves and appreciate what Vangelis has been saying throughout his entire career, and separate misleading marketing from that: he never cared, nor cares, about what makes the sound...

As he put it countless times, the source of the sounds he chooses to use does not matter, but due to various features and possibilities of electronic instruments, he "happens" to use predominantly the latter...

Nocturne is, and will be, more enjoyable if we keep in mind not just what it is meant to be as an album, but also its creator's nowadays unusually consistent artistic credo... It is an album without sharp edges, dramatic contrasts, surprising turns and twists - and despite its length, it seems to stay self-consistent.

Does it reflect an "old-fashioned" credo of human being composing, improvising and playing the music with as little as possible automation or computer technology? Thankfully, for a personal and instantly recognisable touch, yes, it is unashamedly "old-fashioned". Again, it is true to Vangelis's long-held convictions on the relationship between the musician and technology, and also to his principles on what role technology plays in the creative process.

Ultimately, it is a personal contemplation rendered with trimmed-down, sometimes entirely sparse arrangements - therefore, after all this non-exhaustive review blurb, one can state the obvious: due to its intent and nature, it really, really will be a matter of taste and "old-fashioned" musical (not synth musical) sensitivity whether this is a loved or disliked point in Vangelis's considerable discography...