CHINA

I am going out on a limb here and giving China a solid five stars. This was Vangelis at his absolute peak in the late 70's. All the great works of Heaven and Hell, Spiral and La Fete Sauvage culminated in this climatic masterpiece. Progressive music at it's best. Naturally the album has a China feel and theme to the music not to mention climbing himalays and plumb blossmes and love taos. There was a great spiritual revolution closing off the 70's and Vangelis has captured all that on China. I think he achieved similar with Jon Anderson on Short Stories as well.

The album commences with the great ' Chung Kuo', typical Vangelis soundscapes but with the ' tao' feel. ' The Dragon' is a great Eastern upbeat song followed by the beautiful ' Plum Blossom' song, nostalgic and very moving.' The Tao of Love' follows with some great recitation by Koon Fook Man. All the spiritual themes of ' I Ching' alive and well, plenty of karma to reflect upon. Side 2 is more epic landscape sound as the album builds to the " Himalaya' and classic ' Summit' end piece. This is one of Vangelis's top three or four masterpieces. He managed about one a decade so far and this was his 70's number one album.