There must be something about RCA that gets artists to hand them skanky, unlistenable contract-breaker albums. The most infamous of these is, of course, Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music". But this is a good  second. Still, while "MMM" has some arguable virtues as a  predecessor of industrial music and as a high-volume rock-based updating of  La Monte Young's work, this Vangelis thing bears no such value. What you  get is master synthesist Vangelis doing a 45-minute screw-off with what  appears to be a modular synth. And it's not really listenable, not even in  an avant-garde sense. One might be tempted to ask what the hell Vangelis  was thinking...but then, one is also reminded that his following album,  "China", was his first release on Polygram. Can you say  'contractual obligation', kids? I knew you could. Anyway, I would have to  say that this has virtually no uses at all, musically. It doesn't even make  for good spook-show music for Halloween. It's too bleepy-skwonky to qualify  as industrial. And spacy? Not even close...even as a collection of sound  effects for an Bert I. Gordon grade-Z sci-fi movie. It sounds like what it  apparently is: screwing around with electronics. Avoid.
There must be something about RCA that gets artists to hand them skanky, unlistenable contract-breaker albums. The most infamous of these is, of course, Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music". But this is a good  second. Still, while "MMM" has some arguable virtues as a  predecessor of industrial music and as a high-volume rock-based updating of  La Monte Young's work, this Vangelis thing bears no such value. What you  get is master synthesist Vangelis doing a 45-minute screw-off with what  appears to be a modular synth. And it's not really listenable, not even in  an avant-garde sense. One might be tempted to ask what the hell Vangelis  was thinking... but then, one is also reminded that his following album,  "China", was his first release on Polygram. Can you say  'contractual obligation', kids? I knew you could. Anyway, I would have to  say that this has virtually no uses at all, musically. It doesn't even make  for good spook-show music for Halloween. It's too bleepy-skwonky to qualify  as industrial. And spacy? Not even close... even as a collection of sound  effects for an Bert I. Gordon grade-Z sci-fi movie. It sounds like what it  apparently is: screwing around with electronics. Avoid.