My credentials: Countless hours of listening to electronic music since I was a child.

My favourites: Klaus Schulze (the 70's analog albums), Tangerine Dream (the 70's analog albums), Jarre (the first 3 albums), Vangelis (the 70's analog albums).

The favourite of my favourites(of the lighter tone space music): Albedo 0.39 and Spiral by Vangelis

Because a review is not helpful if you dont know the taste of the reviewer. I think that the above comments will give you a hint.

This album is a recording that belongs to the highest achievements of music as a whole. It is a treasure and I am glad that I was fortunate enough to grow up in an environment that appreciated this kind of music. Vangelis explores the universe with this music and all listeners around the world follow him in a journey through creation, evolution and nucleogenesis. Carl Sagan used this music for his popular TV series "Cosmos", a great influence for my point of view of the world and probably one of the reasons that I became a particle physicist!

As I have written in another review for Tangerine Dream, Vangelis is not only a musician. He is a researcher. His studio is not only a music studio but an experimental lab. It is not far from the accelerators that physicist use to unveil the laws of the universe. They do it with mathematics, Vangelis does it with analog synthesizers. It is the same thing. Another thing that adds up to the brilliance of the album and to the musical genius of Vangelis is that he was among the first to explore this kind of technology. He was at the forefront of this "research". Not only he mastered it well but he became the world leader in space music.

I really dont have words to describe this brilliant, inspiring, captivating music. No one deserves to be called a music lover if he or she has not listened to this album (a rather strong statement but its true).

P.S. This review applies to both Albedo 0.39 and Spiral because these 2 albums comprise a musical entity of Vangelis work.

'Spiral' is a good album, following similarly in the genre of predecessors 'Albedo 0.39' and 'Heaven and Hell'. There really isn't a central theme behind 'Spiral', which contrasts it with both of those prior albums. Rather, we are given five tracks representing the wide range of creativity from this Greek composer.

There is a fast-paced song in 'Dervish D' - which is dedicated to the 'dervish who recognizes the truth through his whirling', according to the liner notes. 'Ballad' has a vocal accompaniment in the backgroud, in a tongue I couldn't distinguish.

The best track on the album has to be 'To The Unknown Man'. It has the structure which is eerily reminiscent of Vangelis' later hit 'Chariots of the Fire'. 'To The Unknown Man' takes more time to develop thematically, it would certainly have been well suited for use in a climatic scene in the cinema.

I would recommend 'Spiral' for those who are familiar with the genre of Vangelis' work in the nineteen seventies or early eighties. It is hardly a 'pop' album, but will strike a chord with those who enjoy the musical journies composed by the Greek maestro.

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.

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.

never listened to any of his music but wow im hooked and looking out for moreeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This album promises to put you in whatever mood you may.

"Spiral" is a vicious nor'easter the size of The Perfect Storm, "Ballad" is wistful, "Dervish" is frenzied jazz, "Unknown Man" is a prelude to "Chariots of Fire", and "3+3" completes the set.

Companion to Albedo 0.39 for the Vangelis Starter Collection.