Description
- Voices [7:00]
- Echoes [8:20]
- Come To Me [4:40]
- P.S. [2:05]
- Ask The Mountains [7:55]
- Prelude [4:24]
- Losing Sleep (Still, My Heart) [6:41]
- Messages [7:30]
- Dreams In An Open Place [5:50]
More orchestral than electronic
Vangelis – Voices
€ 9,90
Released: 1995 By East/West
1 in stock
Additional information
| Weight | 105 g |
|---|---|
| Medium | CD |
| Package | Jewel Case |
Phil Derby / Dreams Word –
Vangelis can be difficult to figure out. Just when you think you’ve identified a style, he changes again. He can sound very computerized, or orchestral, or pop, and now he has even added a little opera. As the name implies, Voices” is a another Vangelis journey into the world of vocals
Ivar de Vries –
‘Voices’ is an album with telling contributions by members of the Athens Opera Company as well as a few singers all enhancing the album’s intimate atmosphere. It doesn’t start off like that though, for the title-track is an exuberant outgoing sing-a-long piece la ‘Conquest Of Paradise’ which earlier in the year had unexpectedly become a huge hit all over Europe. It’s probably a bit of a blasphemy to suggest that this shows Vangelis bowing to commercial pressure..so I won’t, but it does come frighteningly close. Its main melody returns in both the beautiful ‘Echoes’ (slowed down to adagio tempo) and the charming little ‘P.S.’ – these three pieces were also released on CD-single.
Another CD-single contained two versions of ‘Ask The Mountains’ recorded with fellow EastWest label-mate Stina Nordenstam but its sort of bathroom atmosphere doesn’t really work all that well. At the start it appears to also feature the cello played by Caroline Lavelle or perhaps Vangelis‘ sampled version of it. Lavelle in turn has a nice Enya-like song in ‘Come To Me’ where she plays her faintly audible cello in the lower registers.
Next on the album perhaps the two best pieces are featured, both very intimate and thoughtful, at first the inspired piano piece ‘Prelude’ immediately followed by another more densely orchestrated piano piece which features Paul Young on vocals and has a great climactic fade-out.
The last two pieces are a bit simple and don’t really add much to what went on before so the overall verdict must be that ‘Voices’ is not a consistently strong album, although it does have its own unique atmosphere. Certainly the singers appear to have to restrain themselves and can’t really sing out like, say, Jon Anderson would, which is a pity for an album entitled ‘Voices’.
1999. Ivar de Vries