Personnel: Vangelis (keyboards).

Photographer: Bob Elsdale.

Arranger: Vangelis.

Taking eight of Vangelis' most ambient and electronically melodic tracks from his mid-'70s albums, The Best of Vangelis may be somewhat of a misleading title, but it's still a justifiable excursion into his sweeping use of the synthesizer and his more elegant type of keyboard journeys. With cuts from 1976's Albedo.39, 1977's Spiral, and 1978's Beaubourg, among others, this period of Vangelis' music represents his bare and simplistic utilization of the synthesizer. "Spiral," "Aries," and "To the Unknown Man" are time-tunnel voyages of softened keyboard washes and rhythm-absent clouds of uncluttered synth. It was during this period that Vangelis crossed the border into new age territory, emerging from his roots with the progressively doused Aphrodite's Child six or seven years before. The last track, entitled "So Long Ago, So Clear," features Yes' Jon Anderson on vocals, ending the album on a high note. Brief, but to the point, The Best of Vangelis carries out its task of grouping some of Evangelos Papathanassiou's most extravagant keyboard pieces. ~ Mike DeGagne

Perhaps this Camden collection of Vangelis tracks should have been retitled The Best of Vangelis 1972-1985. It might have made more sense, but that's a small complaint because what is here is terrific. There are cuts from Spiral and Beauborg, from the Jon & Vangelis recordings, and even from the Cosmos TV series narrated by Carl Sagan. The sound is good, as is the presentation, and it's a nice little introduction -- with the word "little" being the main word in the sentence. Vangelis so often works conceptually -- and has from the very beginning -- that it's tough to size him up in a single-disc retrospective or even really introduce him. But this set tries and, for what it is, does a decent job. ~ Thom Jurek

Long before the soundtrack to CHARIOTS OF FIRE became an international commercial success, the career of Evangelos Odyssey Papathanassiou, aka Vangelis, was well underway. In the early 1960s, the musician helped form the group Formynx, the most popular Greek band of its day, and then prog-rockers Aphrodite's Child. Later, he moved to London and even briefly considered joining Yes before pursuing a solo career.

THE BEST OF VANGELIS assembles eight tracks from this phase, songs taken from ALBEDO 0.39, SPIRAL, and COSMOS, among others. The songs range from the hyperactive "Bacchanale" to the intergalactic majesty of "Spiral," and Vangelis's starry-eyed, Disney-esque duet with Jon Anderson of Yes, "So Long Ago, So Clear."

Taking eight of Vangelis' most ambient and electronically melodic tracks from his mid-'70s albums, The Best of Vangelis may be somewhat of a misleading title, but it's still a justifiable excursion into his sweeping use of the synthesizer and his more elegant type of keyboard journeys. With cuts from 1976's Albedo.39, 1977's Spiral, and 1978's Beaubourg, among others, this period of Vangelis' music represents his bare and simplistic utilization of the synthesizer. "Spiral," "Aries," and "To the Unknown Man" are time-tunnel voyages of softened keyboard washes and rhythm-absent clouds of uncluttered synth. It was during this period that Vangelis crossed the border into new age territory, emerging from his roots with the progressively doused Aphrodite's Child six or seven years before. The last track, entitled "So Long Ago, So Clear," features Yes' Jon Anderson on vocals, ending the album on a high note. Brief, but to the point, The Best of Vangelis carries out its task of grouping some of Evangelos Papathanassiou's most extravagant keyboard pieces. ~ Mike DeGagne