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 Review
Supposedly
this experimental album can be interpreted in two ways. Cynics will argue that
being contractually obliged to provide one last RCA album before switching to
Polydor, Vangelis quickly dashes off this work. I wouldn’t put this past
Vangelis who has scant regard for the music industry but the circumstantial
evidence points to the contrary: he discusses it seriously in interviews and
part of it, or certainly music very much like it, was used to good effect a few
years later in the Frederic Rossif documentary about Pablo Picasso.
In terms of music the album is a bit of a rarity – it is very sound-oriented
with no real melody or rhythm to it but nevertheless tonal. It is also actually
being played (mostly on one instrument), i.e. no programming using random
generators or anything like that. The only processing seems to have consisted of
adding plenty of suitably disorienting stereo-effects. It is basically one piece
cut in half for the original LP-release, which was transferred straight onto the
CD-release.
The fact that Vangelis album-titles usually have direct reference to the ideas
behind his music also applies here. Beaubourg is the Paris district where
Vangelis lived at one time and in it stands the bizarre Centre Pompidou with the
famous tube-network construction. This quality is evident in the music but it
might at the same time also be a very abstract distillation of busy Beaubourg
city-life. Other associations one might get is the exotic world of deep-sea
flora and fauna, or modern painting, like that of Picasso.
To sum up: ‘Beaubourg’ is not an
album you’d much listen to but it’s not to be ignored either. At least the
vivid green album-cover must count as one of the most beautiful Vangelis ever
designed.
Review by Ivar de Vries
Movements
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