Invisible Connections

Invisible Connections
Studio album by Vangelis
Released	March 1985[1]
Genre	Electronic
Length	40:31
Label	Deutsche Grammophon
Producer	Vangelis
Vangelis chronology
Mask (1985) Invisible Connections (1985) Direct (1988)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Piero Scaruffi	(6.5/10)[3]

Invisible Connections is a 1985 album by electronic musician Vangelis.

Track listing

All songs written by Vangelis.

1. "Invisible Connections" – 18:30
2. "Atom Blaster" – 7:50
3. "Thermo Vision" – 13:19

Overview

One of his most obscure albums, Invisible Connections is quite different from the majority of Vangelis's work. It has been compared to minimalist experimental music.

Despite this, it can very loosely be said to belong to a trilogy of his '80s albums, the other two being Soil Festivities from 1984, and Mask from the same year as Invisible Connections.

These all feature a willingness of the artist, at this time, to experiment with not only music itself, but his own album release-patterns, as the content differs so markedly from the style he was known for, up to this point. In fact, it may be that he was deliberately, and consciously, returning to a style he began in 1978, when he released Beaubourg, an album which is as experimental as Invisible Connections.

Though Hypothesis, released in 1978, but recorded in 1971 is also considered to be another "experimental" album, it was a release which Vangelis did not sanction, and, besides, it was musically geared towards jazz fusion rather than the minimalist style of the albums, above.

The music

Track 1 : The first movement, up to 08:35, is a collection of ominious, echo-laden, heavily-treated acoustic sounds; piano, cymbals, and percussion. Highly free-form, in the sense that there is no rhythm or structure (as such), it has an extremely unsettling aura even though it could be classified as being essentially ambient in nature. The second movement, taking up the rest of the track, is more "structured", with the introduction of electronics creating a more classical Vangelis sound, albeit still experimental.

Track 2 : Similar in style to the first movement of the first track, this is very minimalist and free-form, featuring, mostly, treated acoustics and reverberations.

Track 3 : An evolution of the second track, it mixes acoustics with electronics, producing an almost purely ambient, dark soundscape.

"Non-professional" reviews

• 'Vangelis Movements' review (Negative)
• 'ProgArchives' review ()
• 'Vangelis Collector' review (Positive)
• 'Vangelis Collector', Disc Kiosk versions (Positive)

Alternate releases

• LP:
• Deutsche Grammophon VAN 10 (Canada), 1985
• Deutsche Grammophon 415 196-1 (W Germany), 1985
• CD:
• Polydor POCG-3547 (Japan), 1996, different cover
• Disc Kiosk (CD On Demand) EAN:5050801009806, Cat No: 80100980, 2006
• The Japanese release retitled the album to "Meis?", which translates, in English, to "Meditation".

References