 |
| Vangelis’ Nemo Studio in the early ’70s. |
Time for another teaser, this track “Who” is actually a song by one of Greece’s most well known musical exports: Vangelis. Vangelis has always been a super prolific musician. Up to that time he had done a lot of regular musical work with Aphrodite’s Child, some soundtrack work such as 1970’s awesome L’Apocalypse des Animaux, or his own such as Earth etc. Lord knows, how his musical output could keep up with whatever was going on in his mind. The man could play any instrument and style out there…(check out Aphrodite’s Child early work for a taste)…but he was always a bit of a rebel.
As always when he is between record labels, Vangelis always like to do something off-beat and record under pseudonyms to get around having to publish on any record labels deadline. He had done some quasi electro-folk experiments with a made up band he called Alpha Beta in 1971, songs were a bit odd but you can sorta see what he wanted to do. However, after recording Earth another of his own albums, once again he got the wandering bug and did something truly unheard.
Recording in 1974 under the pseudonym Odyssey, he recorded a one-off single, on the b-side you had a nice piece of sample-based muzak called “Sad Face”, then on the A-side you had this what-in-the-hell dancefloor puzzler called “Why”. Predating post-disco, techno, and EDM for years and decades this track had literally no place to belong at that time. I guess the underground dance clubs then might have been privy to play it, but only Vangelis knows where he expected it be heard and more importantly how would you dance to it? maybe in the future? That syncopated rhythm and vocal work couldn’t have been done around this time, or could it? Anyway, this is another puzzle piece I’ll place for ya: