Music Review: Vangelis - Mythodea
Music for the NASA Mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey
Written by: Kage Alan

Album Rating: A

        The majority of people who don't listen to New Age music with any regularity  tend to recognize the name Vangelis from either "Chariots Of Fire," the  "Blade Runner Soundtrack" or Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." I knew all of these  particular pieces as well, but it wasn't until I wrote my first novel to the 
music of "1492" that I really started to seek out the artist's other albums  
and begin to explore his work. It's been an inspiring journey and I've 
looked forward to each new album as well as continuing to discover the older 
ones.  Finding "Mythodea" took me by surprise because as often as I look to  see if there is a new album, I hadn't seen this until a few days ago and it  was released late last year.

I've talked to some other fans of Vangelis' work and this album tends to run 
either extremely hot or extremely cold for them.  It's a change and fans 
don't always like those, but I found it to be rather pleasant. Instead of 
relying exclusively or even heavily on the classic Vangelis synthesizer 
sound, it's mostly orchestral with just hints here and there of the 
synthesizers.  While some found this to be a glaring absence, I didn't.  
Vangelis still composed, arranged and produced the music, so it is him, just 
in a slightly different form.  Aside from using the London Metropolitan 
Orchestra, Vangelis has sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman doing 
vocals as well.

The sound of the album is quite unique.  I've sat down and listened to it a 
number of times since buying it just so I could get the feel of it.  The 
theme is music for the Nasa mission on Mars, so it's not too difficult to 
guess what kinds of images are supposed to come to mind.  I kept referencing 
mental pictures of the film "Mission To Mars" and then I remembered that 
Vangelis' theme from "1492" was used in the trailer for the movie.  Well, at 
least this album and the film were heading towards the same place.  
"Mythodea" begins very soft and eerie, very foreign and barren, much like 
traveling through space and nearing the destination.  Once there, the music 
swells from time to time as if discovering the mystery and beauty of a place 
we've never been and couldn't imagine since we have no real common frame of reference.

Perhaps this just sounds like a lot of rabble. It's probably easier to 
discuss Winger's Greatest Hits here than it is a themed album like this, but 
if you've got an active imagination on your side, then I think you'll 
appreciate what I'm trying to describe here.  "Mythodea" is very much like a 
soundtrack to a film that doesn't exactly exist.  If it did and we had seen 
it, then we'd already have a mental image to fit to the music to, but in this 
case we don't. Here we have to create the mental images around the music.

Like the previous album, "El Greco," instead of having song titles, each 
track is referred to as a "Movement." This particular album has ten 
movements, amounting to a little over an hour of music.  While some movements are more dynamic and melodious than others, it all flows from one to the other and it's much better to appreciate the whole than it is to pick out 
favorites and listen strictly to those. Well, that's what I do and I'm left 
blown away by this new album.

"Mythodea" isn't something I prefer to listen to while I dust and clean 
around my home (I save that privilege for Britney Spears, especially when I'm 
bending over like the parents of the teens who are forced to buy her albums 
for them).  This is something to listen to for reflection, inspiration, 
relaxation and to drown out the idiot who parks outside and has the bass 
turned up so loud that he gets more reverberations per minute than he has IQ 
points.  And people wonder why there's so much hostility in the world.

Think relaxing thoughts. Think escape. Think Vangelis.  

Kage holds degrees in Creative Writing, as well as Film & Video. He has been featured in a Life Journey Tele-Course, published poems in several national anthologies, been a contributor to The Third Coast Magazine and written several novels. kage@modamag.com >>Previous Page