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This 1977 release is another great Vangelis album and once again demonstrates his skill as a fantastic composer and familiarity with a wide range of instruments (synthesizers, percussion, and drums). The music of Vangelis is varied enough that it could defy description, yet it seems clear that "progressive electronic" aptly describes Spiral. The four tracks on the album range in length from 5'14' to 9'35" and cover a wide range of dynamics and moods. Synth textures/timbres of all description are used on the album ranging from the cheery and upbeat to the spacey and gloomy, making for a very interesting listening experience. Fortunately, the synth textures he uses are very warm and natural sounding and Vangelis is extremely clever with respect to orchestration.
Although a complete list of synthesizers is not provided in the credits, being a bit of a synthesizer nut I did a little bit of digging on the internet and came up with some detailed notes regarding synth use on Spiral. Apparently, 1977 was the year that the Yamaha CS80 came out and Vangelis used it to take the place of the ARP Pro Soloist that he had played on several earlier recordings - in fact, the natural sounding tones of the CS80 are featured on every track. Other pieces of equipment used by Vangelis include the ARP Odyssey; Korg Minipops 120; Roland System 100; and an ARP sequencer (this instrument is used a lot too). For those of you that are curious, the Korg Minipops is a drum computer - my guess is that the drum computer was used on To the Unknown Man although I am not positive. Vangelis also used three effects units to create the odd sounding voice on Ballad including the Roland Space Echo 201; Boss Chorus Ensemble; and the EMS Vocoder 1000.
All in all, this is yet another great album of progressive electronic music from Vangelis and is recommended along with Heaven and Hell (1975); Albedo 0.39 (1976); and Opera Sauvage (1979).
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Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2007
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013
The printed media looks awful. The cover is pixelated and soft, it looks like they just blew it up from the small image on the product page. The rest of the printing is no better, things are cut kind of off, it just doesn't look very professional at all. But for the moment let's just say that cover art, liner notes, what-have you are all just perks. Let's say that all we really care about is the music. Frankly, I could've dealt with finding high-res cover art elsewhere, ripping the disc to FLAC, and throwing it in the can. But the audio quality is awful. Horrendous. Within the first few seconds, you will hear it - a weird digital noise, almost like the arpeggiated sequence is clipping, but kind of worse. It doesn't stop. It makes an otherwise beautiful album completely unlistenable. Amazon's MP3s are not exactly what I would call high quality, yet the MP3s for 'Spiral' sound entirely better than this burnt CD-R. This isn't some picky, nuanced, audiophile type complaint... This is loud, constant noise, like digital distortion almost (update: looking at the waveforms reveals that throughout much of it, waves that should be smooth and round have been 'squared off'), and it's a noticeably stark contrast to the actual music which is warm, analog, soothing. Complete waste of money.
Update - I added an image comparing the messy waveforms with the real. I tried to add another that shows a lot of the waveforms are 'squared off,' but I've yet to figure out why Amazon does/doesn't accept an image so that's in limbo for now.
Buy used or elsewhere - Amazon's CD-R quality is awful!
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013
I'm not here to review the music on this album, but rather the quality of a specific release of this album - the 'manufactured on demand' CD-R that you get if you currently order this from Amazon. Now, I had no idea Amazon did this, and I really think Amazon should display this fact more prominently, as I never would've bought a CD-R in the first place had I noticed. CD-Rs don't have the robustness or longevity of real pressed CDs, and I essentially end up feeling like I'm paying extra for an incredibly inefficient FLAC distribution. Ultimately the product page does state that it's a CD-R, so I'll take the blame for the actual purchase even though I think the statement should be more obvious for those of us who had no idea (nor reason to believe, frankly) that Amazon was in the business of burning CD-Rs. I'd be alright with taking said blame if the problems were limited to those inherent in CD-R burning, but they aren't.Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013
The printed media looks awful. The cover is pixelated and soft, it looks like they just blew it up from the small image on the product page. The rest of the printing is no better, things are cut kind of off, it just doesn't look very professional at all. But for the moment let's just say that cover art, liner notes, what-have you are all just perks. Let's say that all we really care about is the music. Frankly, I could've dealt with finding high-res cover art elsewhere, ripping the disc to FLAC, and throwing it in the can. But the audio quality is awful. Horrendous. Within the first few seconds, you will hear it - a weird digital noise, almost like the arpeggiated sequence is clipping, but kind of worse. It doesn't stop. It makes an otherwise beautiful album completely unlistenable. Amazon's MP3s are not exactly what I would call high quality, yet the MP3s for 'Spiral' sound entirely better than this burnt CD-R. This isn't some picky, nuanced, audiophile type complaint... This is loud, constant noise, like digital distortion almost (update: looking at the waveforms reveals that throughout much of it, waves that should be smooth and round have been 'squared off'), and it's a noticeably stark contrast to the actual music which is warm, analog, soothing. Complete waste of money.
Update - I added an image comparing the messy waveforms with the real. I tried to add another that shows a lot of the waveforms are 'squared off,' but I've yet to figure out why Amazon does/doesn't accept an image so that's in limbo for now.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2014
