NOT A BIT - ALL OF IT

In 1980 - when he also collaborated with Jon Anderson for the first JON & VANGELIS album - Vangelis took an unexpected sidestep into techno. And especially with the help of vocals and various kinds of spoken parts he seemingly wanted to prove that he's got sense of humour too. See You Later is generally considered to be one of the worst Vangelis albums, but it surely has its peculiar charm and finer, even beautiful moments.

'Not a Bit - All Of It' (3:00) is a parody of an advertisement. The main body of the music is like a naive rehearsal piece for a little group of strings repeating a simple melody, then (at 0:35 approximately) enters a female advertising voice: "Hysteria, insomnia, stress, neurosis - please give a better impression with clever use of cosmetics!" The strings are joined by light brass and percussion for waltz-like bridges, and later by a plain silly male backing voice too, to make it clear this is humour. In the later ad speech parts the person names are censored with a high beep. I don't like humour music, but this is quite an amusing and personal slice of such thing.

The B-side is 'Multi-track Suggestion' (5:36) which is among the better tracks on See You Later, a combination of a hollow programmed rhythm, classy and elegant synth sounds and various vocals. This kind of unusual approach, without completely losing the recognizable Vangelis touch, makes the album in question a very interesting case, and this single is a surprisingly functionable sample of it in its own right. I'll shock some of you and give it three sympathetic stars.