Beaubourg

Description

At the time of its recording, Beaubourg was Vangelis’s most experimental album and the one that split the Greek keyboardist’s fans into two camps. On one side, the devoted admirers; on the other, the bitter critics. This 1978 album takes its name from the district of Paris where the young Papathanassíou (his full name) lived for a few years in the late 60s, and where he fell under the spell of its cultural environment as well as France in general. With "Beaubourg," Vangelis creates a real break. No more here of tickling the cosmos with Yamaha CS-80 flourishes or weaving airy soundscapes. Here, we move decisively into a certain aggressiveness of sonorities that bounce around chaotically with no melodic concern whatsoever. Vangelis is above all engaged in improvisation and gives free rein to his imagination across these two long suites, constantly subjected to capricious changes in rhythm or atmosphere. In this sense, the work comes closer to the creations of electronic pioneers such as Edgar Varese or LaMonte Young. And at that point, it all becomes a matter of taste. Fans of well-crafted, highly melodic electronic prog quickly turn on their heels and flee through the windows and cellar grates, while adventurers of the unlistenable, explorers of the music of the spheres, are tempted by the experience and see in Vangelis a musician far more visionary and daring than Jean-Michel Jarre, at the time the only musician comparable to Vangelis in this kind of music.