Vangelis
Nails and kitchen pans went inside the family piano when Vangelis was four, an early taste for strange sounds. He never learned to read music, playing from memory instead, and that instinct carried him from the psychedelic rock of Aphrodite's Child, whose 666 reimagined the Book of Revelation, into solo electronic adventures.
From his London 'laboratory', Nemo Studios, came Heaven and Hell and Albedo 0.39, excerpts of which accompanied Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Like a one-man orchestra, he composed and performed on the first take.
His synthesiser score for Chariots of Fire (1981) defied period-drama convention, won an Academy Award and topped the US charts, though he skipped the ceremony, partly from fear of flying. Blade Runner (1982) followed, and NASA collaborations culminated in Juno to Jupiter (2021), his final studio album. He died in Paris in 2022, aged 79.
If you like Vangelis you should check out: Aphrodite's Child, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, Ennio Morricone, John Carpenter, Hans Zimmer, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson
