L' APOCALYPSE DES ANIMAUX (OST)

Even though this album, which is officially Vangelis' 2nd album after leaving Aphrodite's Child, was released in 1973, the same year as "Earth", the music was actually recorded in 1970, the same year that he recorded the music for "Sex Power" (another soundtrack), "Hypothesis" and "The Dragon" (the latter two released without his approval and later withdrawn). During this time, Vangelis was in an experimental mode, searching for his signature sound by trying out different technology and playing around with musical styles. All of the above mentioned albums (except for "Earth") were recorded while he was still a part of Aphrodite's Child, meaning that he was quite prolific at the time.

As far as "L'Apocalypse des animaux", the music for this album was specifically written as another soundtrack, this time for a French TV series, a documentary about animals. There was quite a bit of music written for this series, much of which does not appear on the album, but is still in the documentary. Usually, when Vangelis writes music for a soundtrack, he does it after watching the film and composing for it. This time, however, he simply wrote music based on the fact that it was an animal documentary and then left it up to the showrunners to use what they needed.

The album consists of 7 tracks with the shortest being just over a minute and the longest at over 10 minutes. The overall album is quite short at about 33 minutes, so there was obviously more room to include more of the music he composed. Why this was left off is anyone's guess.

The first side of the album concentrates on simple melodic music, lovely, expansive and indicative of the style that Vangelis would become famous for. Starting with a short, upbeat track that has a nice tropical feel, the listener's attention is grabbed right away. The short track is named after the TV series. After this, "La Petite Fille de la Mer" (The LIttle Girl of the Sea - 5:54) is a delicate and beautiful waltz-like melody, reminding one of the music from "Chariots of Fire". It's airy and light with soft layers flowing around the melody played by the treated electric piano. "Le Singe bleu" (The Blue Monkey - 7:39) sees the light keys with a slow vibrato added but soon a very realistic trumpet effect takes the melody which is surprisingly pensive for a track representing a monkey. I'm thinking it's indicative of a sad monkey, not a monkey of the color blue, which would fit the bluesy feel of the music. On my edition, the next track is the short "L'Ours musician" (The Musician Bear - 1:03) which is a short, playful and lumbering track accented with loping drums and effects. On my edition, strangely enough, is the track "Mort du Loop" (The Death of the Wolf - 3:03), which all other track lists show these two tracks in reversed order from my album. This track has a nice piano and acoustic guitar effect, very spacious and lovely, similar to a European ballad.

While the first side of the album centered more on melody, the 2nd side concentrates on atmosphere and ambient style. "Creation du monde" (Creation of the World - ?) is the longest track on the album. However, the exact length is up for question as different sources show different timings. The album jacket claims it is 11:25, while the label says it is 17:45 (which this is an obvious misprint), Wikipedia says it is 10:03, and Discogs says it is 9:51. Either way, the timing on this one allows it to ebb and flow, being experimental and atmospheric with a lot of spacial feel. There is definitely no melody to worry about here or on the next track "La Mer Recommencee" (The Sea Again - 5:30). Continuing with ambience and atmosphere, there is also a clanging effect that randomly sounds out. Rolling drums and cymbals symbolize the waves and percussive noises will remind you of chattering seagulls.

This album was the impetus for Jon Anderson to contact Vangelis which led to a meeting of the two, and the beginning of the eventually resulting Jon & Vangelis albums. It definitely foreshadows the style Vangelis became famous for, thus making it a worthwhile album for almost anyone, though it's not his best, it's still very nice and relaxing and you don't need to see the visuals that go along with the music to enjoy it. The songs stand alone quite well. While the previous album "Earth" centered more on a popular, song-oriented style, this one works more for atmosphere, and it is a much better album because of that.