Albedo 0.39 --- Vangelis --- 1976 (RCA)
All right, let's get this out of the way right from the start:
"Albedo: the reflecting power of a planet or other non-luminous body. A perfect reflector would have an Albedo of 100%. The Earth's Albedo is 39%, or 0.39".
Happy? No? Tough. For those who need to know, the title is pronounced All-bee-doh zero point three nine. This is the mighty Vangelis's eighth album, among a flurry released in the seventies (twelve in all) which was certainly his most prolific period, and yet not his most popular or commercial. That only came in the early eighties with the hit "Chariots of fire" and later of course he would write the entire soundtrack for the cult sci-fi movie "Blade runner". But even back in the seventies he was certainly in demand, with his music appearing in various documentaries of the time, most notably of which I remember as Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", which was in fact where I first heard the music of Vangelis.
Despite being of course completely instrumental, "Albedo 0.39" is seen as a concept album, basically looking at the physics of space --- think Professor Stephen Hawking if he could put his thoughts to music --- now
there would be a collaboration, eh? It's not surprisingly really; Vangelis' music has always had that otherworldly, eerie feeling of space, of drifting off into the universe and seeing the sights. It's no fluke that his music typically soundtracked programmes on science, space and exploration, because it is these very ideas that his music conjures up: the mystery and awe of the universe in which we live out our oh-so-insignificant lives on our oh-so-insignificant little planet in the vain conceit that we are the most important beings in the cosmos.
But enough philosophical ramblings: on to the music. "Pulstar" kicks things off with, not surprisingly, a pulsing synth joined by another which trumpets alongside it, then little stabs of higher-register synth jump in, almost like lasers being fired in a space battle. Rolling percussion booms behind piano and little tinkly noises, the tempo fast but not too much. Some strings-style synth is added to flesh out the sound before it all gets a little frenetic with the drums booming and the squeaky, laserlike synth answering. It all builds then towards something of a crescendo before the whole thing falls back, like a wave crashing against a cliff, and the main melody begins again, a little more restrained this time and pulling wind and other sound effects into the mix. With a last boom of percussion and roll of synths we fall into a descending bassy synth line which ends with the sound of a telephone being hung up.
As the speaking clock tells us the time we're into "Freefall", an orientally styled piece with gamelan taking the lead as little whistling synths bring up the rear, little in the way of percussion really and it's kind of like listening to someone setting wind chimes to music, very ambient. "Mare Tranquillitatas" then is another short piece consisting of rising synth with droning keys and snippets of conversation from NASA moon landings, taking us into "Main sequence", where Vangelis goes all jazzy, with brassy drums and a sequenced synth piece trundling along like something out of an old TV adventure show. Lots of synth brass in this too, rising in pitch as it goes along. The keyboards get a little progressive rock here at times, but mostly it's a piece built around a syncopating jazz rhythm. Some heavy synth chords then bring in a piano, but it's mostly drowned out by the squealing main keyboard melody and synth trumpets that carry the main tune. For what it is it's overlong for me. I don't mind long Vangelis tracks but I'm no fan of jazz, and this is very jazzy.
The piano begins to make its presence felt now, with hammered chords echoing across the melody, the drums almost out of tune with the rest of the piece, seeming to be keeping their own rhythm. Yeah, I really don't like this. But eventually it ends, calming right down and "Sword of Orion", though a far shorter piece, just under two minutes, is much slower and laidback, built on a small synth arpeggio with rising lower-register synth behind it, almost hymnal in its way. Spacey sound-effects rise and fall as the piece reaches its end and flows into one of my favourite Vangelis tunes, one of the very first I ever heard. Built on a single simple phrase, "Alpha" starts off with a high-pitched synth and sprinkly sounds like somone scattering fairy dust or something, and grows as other synth sounds get added, in the sort of progression we see in Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major". It's a sprightly little tune, very catchy, and actually runs for nearly six minutes. After about two of those, heavy booming percussion hits in and the tune takes on a new life, and when the drums get going properly trumpeting synth joins the other quieter one and the thing marches majestically on to its triumphant conclusion.
Between them, the "Nucleogenesis" suite take up almost twelve minutes, but they're recorded as two separate tracks, with part one upbeat and rife with squealing, squeaking synth and rolling piano, galloping drums and little synth noises, a very bassy synth taking the lead early on with hammering chords and rapid-fire arpeggios, with later some breathy runs recalling the best of ELO's material coming in then halfway through it breaks down into an almost Spanish guitar and tubular bells melody, becoming quite classical in tone. Thick heavy bass and crashing drums take it into a slightly darker line, this emphasised by the deep pitch bend at close to the fifth minute. Then everything stops as the sound of an old-style rotary telephone being dialled and we hear the pips of the speaking clock, whereafter a huge cinematic passage breaks through, fading out quickly though and taking us into part two.
Fugue-style church organ opens this, very baroque, much slower and grander, and indeed continuing the dark tone of the first part, then spacey synth noises and runs slide in, the organ fading out and drum pads fizz and pop while trumpeting fanfare keys thread themselves through the melody. There's quite a prog rock feel to this again now, as tubular bells chime and a low buzzy synth complains while the main melody continues, guitar added and sprinkling little effects flying off here and there. The tone has sped up now and right up to the point a gong rings out it keeps going, finally fading down on the back of a rolling strings synth melody like the ending to a film. Have to be honest and say I don't like either of these pieces very much.
The closer is also the title track, and if weird it's typically Vangelis. Against a low, swirling synth line his engineer relates facts about the Earth, such as maximum distance from the sun, density, refractive index and lots of other stuff you and I probably don't know or want to know. The music accompanying the list of facts suits it perfectly; spacey, eerie, almost ominous. It also works very well when he eventualy delivers the important bit, the title, the Earth's albedo, and the music stirs grandly behind him, rising like the sun over his shoulder.
TRACKLISTING
1. Pulstar
2. Freefall
3. Mare Tranquilitatis
4. Main sequence
5. Sword of Orion
6. Alpha
7. Nucleogenesis (Part One)
8. Nucleogenesis (Part Two)
9. Albedo 0.39
Vangelis is not for everyone, and this album is certainly not for everyone. It's not really even for me. There's a lot I don't like about it, but then my favourite Vangelis track is on it, the one that introduced me to this man's work. And of course there's the title track, like nothing you've ever heard before. It's an odd album, but there is always one other thing that ensures it will forever have a place in my heart, despite its flaws. My best friend Gary, over twenty-five years dead now, used to laugh when we would play the title track and imagine it playing at a disco, where the DJ would tell the people to stop dancing and take out notebooks. "You may as well go home knowledgeable" he would say.
Not too many albums can promise you the "length of the siderial year, fixed star to fixed star", or other tidbits of information about this wonderful planet we live on. That in itself is a decent enough reason to at least listen to this album once, I believe.