Mask

Enjoyed this at the first listen and know it will get better with each play. Bit disappointed as amazon has it listed as a 2012 release in their item description when its an old recording. Sound is still excellent but did think it was a new Vangelis album. My fault I guess for not reading the fine print. Lovely album none the less.

I had this cassette tape back in the late 80's and decided that I needed the CD version.

Hello Amazon! YOU HAVE SENT ME A PIRATED COPY, please find your supplier and find out what happened.This is suposed to be a compact disc from Polydor, istead i got a well printed, but pirated CD-R, the logo is also wrong...Very strange!!!!I hope Amazon send me a proper copy, so I can add the 6 stars Vangelis Deserves for this album!

Great

Movement 2 is one of the best recordings available.

As near to a style of electronic opera as one can imagine. While the tonality is firmly rooted in western modes, Vangelis manages a level of timbral and textural depth that is striking, furious and beautiful. After his Beaubourg series, this is likely one of his darkest works (though more accessible).This album might indeed be his analog electronic music swan song, for none of his subsequent works in the years since has employed his trademark analog sound to the same effect; like so many of his contemporaries, he was all too quickly infatuated with the meaningless bric-a-brac and sonic mimicry of the digital sampling age.For aficionados of the analog electronic sound, I can't recommend this highly enough.

Quite simply- a masterpiece. Somewhat symphonic in it's structure, it even has operatic overtones. Electronic sounds bubble-up from the depths of black space to occupy every part of the soundstage, accompanied by choral voices. Neither entirely classically orientated, nor 'new-age', this defies accurate pigeon-holing, which can't be a bad thing. For the electronic-music anoraks amongst us, it has to be pointed out that he plays a Yamaha CS-80, which is just about the most powerful and expressive electronic instrument ever built, even including todays instruments.Go on- buy this album!

This, along with Soil Festivities, is a distinct break from his earlier works. This one opens with a gong, agitated rhythm, punctuated theme followed by a thunderous intense (synthetic?) wordless latin-like syllabalic chorus-like voices on top. I don't see any vocal attributions to a single person let alone a whole collection of voices, so I assume it is some pretty sophisticated synthesizer stuff. Nevertheless, it could be real humans not listed in the credits. In other movements, in addition to the chorus voices, there are lyrical passages in the alto/tenor range with similar wordless syllabalic nature that I also assume are synthesized.Throughout the movements (6 of them) Vangelis explores themes and motifs ranging through lyrical, light, majestic, dark, brooding, abrupt, agitated and thunderous. The material is interesting, complex and rich. If you're looking for elevator/supermarket/reception/on-hold fluff, then this is not the place to find it.Its tensions never get strident or dissonant. If you are familiar with orchestral works, then, by comparison, the intensities and tensions don't reach the levels found in Ralph Vaughan Williams' 4th or 6th symphonies, Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique or Gustav Holst's Planets. You won't need therapy and it won't wear you out.If you listen to all the movements in one sitting, the last movement will give you some well placed light etherial majestic relief and closure to the set of movements.I listened to this CD along with Soil Festivities while driving a motorhome up Red Mountain Pass in Western Colorado in 1985. On board were my family, mother-in-law and a guest British/Welsh family. The material gave great sonic material to accompany the visual material around us as we drove through some of the steepest and narrowest mountain highways in the US. The passengers found it a riveting experiance visually and aurally and one that they all remember years later.This is one of my most listened to CDs. If I had to liquidate my CD collection, this one would be one of the last to go.

The remastered Mask is only a bit better sonically than the original, but regardless of this, this is one of Vangelis' most under-rated albums. If you find the chroal excesses of 'Mythodea' a bit too much, this may be more to your taste, as the balance of voices and electronic instrumentation is in better balance.

Quite unusual, not what I expected to hear. Great sounds.

received cd on time,played with no problems,excellent service thanks

Most tracks are beautiful and atmospheric.

Uno de los clásicos ochenteros de Papathanassiou; Imprescindible en la trilogía de "Soil Festivities" e "Invisible Connections" (tercero en dicsordia); se me olvidaba apuntar que en estas nuevas ediciones se hecha de menos más créditos (la nota escueta sobre el disco es bastante prescindible NO APORTA NADA), el formato digypack no es de mis preferidos, pero por el sonido, merece la pena. Esta última parte es extensible a todas las reeedicones de la UMC de 2017. No se lo han currado praticamente nada, una pena...