via BladeZone where you will find the full article.
"A tremendously gifted yet private man, it was Vangelis, along with a handful of other musicians, who almost single-handedly brought about the acceptance of electronic music as it's own distinct art form. This feature is an attempt to analyze the creative process employed by Vangelis when recording the famous soundtrack for Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and to try and give a brief insight into the unique manner in which he went about creating and recording the music that he produced during this time, when the digital samplers and music-making equipment that we take for granted today had not even been invented, and the creation of electronic-based music was a much more hands-on process."
"One of the major reasons why the Blade Runner soundtrack still sounds so modern and innovative to this day was the choice of instruments used to create the music, and the way Vangelis would combine acoustic and electronic sounds to create highly original, evocative sound textures - for example, the combination of orchestral percussion instruments and ubiquitous sweeping synth lines heard over the opening titles, played on Vangelis' favourite ever synth, the Yamaha CS80, which provided most of the solo synth lines heard in "Blade Runner", including the expressive, harmonica-like sound featured on "Blade Runner Blues" and "BR Main Titles". The Yamaha CS80 was one of the first ever polyphonic analogue synths to become commercially available, and was a serious beast, weighing in at around 210 pounds!!! Vangelis was introduced to the CS80 at a trade fair in 1977, and was tremendously excited by the possibilities it offered, but arranged to have one on loan for a few weeks before deciding whether to spend the necessary £4850 (the 'CS80's asking price at this time)! The equivalent cost today would be around £26,000. During this period, Vangelis recorded the "Spiral" album (released 1977), which featured the CS80 on every track. Shortly after, he imported a CS80 from Japan in order to bypass the six-month UK waiting list, and the synth arrived in London after a mammoth train journey through Russia. Vangelis eventually went on to buy another SEVEN CS80s, some of which were for concerts, while others were just for spare parts."
via Tim Peters. You can see some of that Blade Runner magic in this clip:
Great article!
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing some of the pics in an issue of Sound on Sound a few years back.
One pic I find quite amusing is the one of Vangelis and Demis Roussos sitting side by side; notice the bag of suspicious white powder right in front of Demis?
Ala never ending story:
ReplyDelete"They look like... big... greek... hands..."
He say you brade runnah.
ReplyDelete