HYPOTHESIS

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Pretty interesting early recording, this was recorded after "Aphrodite's Child's 666". This album doesn't resemble 666, nor does it resemble the electronic albums he later done. No, this is a rather jazzy album with Hammond organ dominating. The album is divided in to two parts, the first part is the most jazzy. It's really hard to believe this is coming from the same guy who would later give us "Chariots of Fire". The second half of the album tends to be more experimental. It's nice finding an album untypical for a certain artists, and VANGELIS did that with "Hypothesis". Apparently not available as a CD reissue so hold on your turntables.

The sympathetic 1970's sci-fi themed album cover picture gives a quite misleading impression of the style of the music to be heard on this record, released without the authorization of Vangelis. Instead of cosmic music we get here quite wanna-be elitist Hammond and violin driven jazz jams in two bit over sixteen minutes lasting doses, recorded at some obscure studio and sold to markets by moneymakers uninterested of artists rights to their work. There are many weird elements in these musical outbursts, but they don't really irritate but rather amuse me. For example, the album starts with a very monotonic simple note being played in different volumes and with weird rhythm. Later the tunes start to wander off from the eight-tone scales creating very schizoid feelings. If you only like the more melodic and accessible works of Vangelis, then this record may be a disappointment, but if you're interested of the different phases of his career, then this is truly a quite unique possibility to voyeur inside historic visions from his sealed recording studio.

Vangelis - Hypothesis (1971)

Friso's 100th review celabration!

Tuut tut tuuut tut!

The quality of this record has been dinied for long enough now! This is withoud question the best Vengelis record, although it doesn't sound like a Vengelis record. It's a hard record to get into, for it has much dissonant parts. No constant flow of melodies, but a flow of sounds.

Spacerock influenced jazz/fusion with freejazz elements and jamsession like structures. That's the best way I can discribe this. The record has one big flow and there mustn't have been lot of compositions for this record, for it sounds improvised. The expectations of the coverart will come true when the abstract organ sounds accompanied by Vegelis' strange deformed voice start the album (tuut tuut tuut whaha).

There's only a great bassist and drummer to follow Vengelis' free exploration during the whole record, but they succeed very well. On side two a violin is added for some effects. Sometimes you can hear the musicians searching, but most of the time the music feel like a complete piece. This reminds me of the free forms of Krautrock expressed in the same period in Germany. The recording is done good, but somehow the sound and atmosphere of this record is extremely good!

Conclusion. A record that always amazes me! No les then four stars for this one! Proggers interested in jazz, krautrock, improvised music, dissonant music and space rock should check this out!

It is quite difficult to tell what I was expecting when I listened to this old chapter of Vangelis recordings. If you're heading to some aerial and spacey tones: you might be surprised (as I was though).

This album is quite jazz improvised, difficult to bear or swallow for anybody looking for some tranquility. Be warned: this ain't anything to do with most of the work from the Greek master. Just some wild imagings of an artist. Mixing a little psychedelia with lots of jazz passages. Part one is totally indigestible as far as I'm concerned.

The problem with a two tracks album is that if the first one isn't any good, the second one must be convincing to recoup somewhat the blunder of the first one. Unfortunately, it is not the case with this album. Not that the second part of this work is not worth; but frankly: I can't consider this as a masterpiece either (far from it actually).

There is no cohesion: some drum solo out of nowhere, some fine organ sections, some improvisations?Not a big deal to be honest. In my books, I can't go over two stars for this "work".

This early album of Vangelis is really unusual in his huge discography. Instead of being just a solo album with some additional guests, we have here a free-jazz quartet in which each member plays his solos and riffs as in every jazz quartet.

With enough attention some elements that will later become part of the "usual" Vangelis music are already present, but the first side is simply a jam session.

The things change on the B side that's more spacey and psychedelic. The electronic noises seem to come from a SciFi movie of the 60s (Forbidden Planet as example). It reminds to his most controversial album Invisible Connections.

After this chaotic beginning the music turns to folky (in the Greek sense). While the bass insists with a repetitive line the band plays something very close to early Magma. Vangelis was often in France during these years. Four minutes more and we are on the chaotic chords of Nucleogenesis. The change follows few seconds of silence. There's not a transition, like they were different movements. After a bit of chaos the violin plays an unstructured melody over a jazz base. This is one of the best moments of the album. Initially melancholic, it goes back to cold jazz airs when the drumming becomes parossistic.

Whoever has a deep knowledge of Vangelis music will recognize sounds and athmospheres that he will reuse later. This makes this album very interesting for fans.

It's a short album: about 35 minutes in total, and I think that it has been recently re-released together with "The Dragon" on a single CD.

In terms of rating it would be 4 stars for fans, but also Krautrockers, Zeuhl and Avant fans can find it good. Being non-essential for the rest of the world I'd say 3 stars only.

The first of two unofficial (i.e. illegally marketed) Vangelis albums release in 1978 doesn't fully deserve the three stars I'm rounding my rating up to. But settling for only two stars (fans only) wouldn't be exactly right either, if only because his most ardent followers might not even recognize this bizarre novelty as the work of the same artist responsible for albums like "Heaven and Hell" or "Albedo 0.39".

The music itself (for this effort, and its likewise illicit companion, "The Dragon") was actually recorded more than a half-decade earlier, as part of a series of strictly exploratory studio sessions never intended for public consumption. Six years later, after Vangelis had established himself as a bona fide star, the tapes were slapped onto vinyl inside a totally random sci-fi cover and released without the artist's permission, in a blatant act of commercial exploitation.

Lawsuits followed, naturally. It's a pity too, because there's some fascinating music here, completely unlike anything else in the wide Vangelis discography. Jazzy keyboard improvisations, accompanied by drums, bass and violin? Vangelis was definitely playing outside his comfort zone, but deserves a lot of credit for making such a bold leap without any kind of safety net (and also, please note, without the inborn sensitivity of a natural jazzer). The second, more spacey and abstract half of the record is particularly rewarding in a weird, ersatz Krautrock sort of way, despite the arbitrary edits, sloppy drum solo, and unresolved ending (it just...sort of stops).

I'm sure the whole reason behind the music was to find a possible aim for his newly minted solo career. To that end the seemingly random album title was actually well chosen, presenting an open-ended musical proposition, in this case no doubt leading Vangelis to the conclusion that his talents were better utilized elsewhere.

Thomas Edison supposedly once said, 'I never failed; I just found 3,000 ways how not to build a light bulb.' This album needs to be heard the same way, as a less-than- incandescent experiment offering a valuable peek into the creative process, and in its own messy way providing a worthwhile alternative to some of the aural wallpaper Vangelis would later become famous for.