SHORT STORIES

In 1976 Vangelis played on Jon Anderson's excellent solo debut "Olias Of Sunhillow", then one year after Jon gave his voice and lyrics to "So Long Ago So Clear" on Vangelis' Heaven and Hell. Vangelis declined the offer to replace Rick Wakeman in the YES, but the seeds of the collaboration between Jon and Vangelis were planted.

Short Stories is an underrated album. It's true that the two genres are not very well fitting one into the other, but the result is everything but bad.

"Curious Electric" is from a musical point of view one of the best things ever written by Vangelis, including the electronic interlude which hosts Jon's first vocal effort. It's a song in three different sections on which we can see some of the many faces of the Greek keyboardist.

"Each and Everyday" sees the melodic side of both the artists join into an excellent song. Jon sings on sounds that are reminding of Vangelis previous album: China, but the instrumental part is not too dissimilar from the most melodic things of Aphrodite's Child.

"Bird Song" is more a coda of the previous song than a filler.

"I Hear You Now" is nothing special, to be honest. Just a melodic song on an electronic base. Not so bad to have to be skipped, just a bit mediocre.

I'm used to skip "The Road", instead. I find it boring. I think it's the weakest song of the album. Only when the keyboards overcome the acoustic guitar it acquires a sense.

"Far Away In Baghdad" opens with a vocal solo and seems to be more Jon's stuff. Who has liked Tales From Topographic Ocean will be delighted by this song. A great opener for the B side. After two minutes it stops and becomes spacey. This side of Vangelis is often defined as newage, I think it's closer to krautrock, instead. I have to admint that the central part of the song , when Jon restarts singing, is a bit too melodic.

"Love Is" has a weird electronic intro. Again when Jon sings there are connections to Tales. Of course there's no Howe or Squire, here. It fades into "One More Time", a kind of song that will be the normality in the next albums of the duo.

"Thunder" is really a short story. Two minutes of Jon singing on a childish melody almost alone, then a drum leads to the "beat" chorus and back to Jon. Short nice bit.

The closure of the album is a long song. Slow and melodic, it features some good instrumental passages. I find it very similar to So Long Ago So Clear until it becomes fast and rocky. When this rhythmic interlude is finished the sound becomes spacey and Jon's voice contributes in making it ethereal "we're returning once again and again". There's much of Albedo 0.39 in this song.

I'm undecided between 3 and 4 stars. Having rated Tales with 4 I I have to round it down to three, but it's more than just "good but non-essential".