The idea album to finish all idea albums has come once more. Fifty-two years after its preliminary launch, 666 by Aphrodite’s Little one – a sprawlingly bold and bombastic sonic interpretation of The E book Of Revelation – will get the type of reissue therapy reserved just for probably the most revered of cult classics.
In addition to a double album and four-CD set, there’s additionally an exhaustive field set that includes the remastered unique album, a 1974 Greek launch combine, a 5.1 combine and an Atmos Up-Combine overseen by Vangelis earlier than his demise. And if that weren’t sufficient, there’s a Blu-ray interview with Vangelis from 1972 taken from the French TV present Discorama to get caught into as effectively.
As its subtitle, The Apocalypse Of John, suggests, the album idea is actually the Biblical finish of the world, with Aphrodite’s Little one performing in an enormous prime because the Rapture kicks off past the conical roof. The godfathers of eschatological prog can foresee Judgment Day with an audacious readability – even when they didn’t anticipate the internecine studio bickering or the protracted dispute with Mercury Data that was to observe.
The report begins with a crowd chanting ‘Fuck the system!’ and that’s the place any semblance of order dissipates. The surprising is available in many kinds, be it the rolling toms and clarion trumpets of Babylon, the musique concrète of Seven Bowls, the tin whistle and bodhran merry dance of The Marriage ceremony Of The Lamb, the interjections of spoken phrase on tracks like The Seize Of The Beast, the wild jazz horns of Tribulation, the proto-ambience of Aegian Sea or the jazz-rock dadaism of Do It.
If that doesn’t present sufficient selection, there’s additionally Infinity, the place Greek actress Irene Papas chants for 5 minutes whereas simulating an orgasm. It’s actually not a report for the faint-hearted, or for Mercury, because it goes, who stalled the discharge for a yr because of that offending observe.
However, for all of the lunacy, there’s additionally 4 Horsemen, an irresistibly unique melange of ethereal chimes and pitch-bending drones and Demis Roussos’ impressed, vertiginous singing, with the entire observe lifting off from the introduction of Lucas Sideras’s unerring breakbeat. It’s pure alchemy, and rendered in Vangelis’s Atmos combine, it makes Armageddon sound surprisingly inviting.
By the point 666 finally made it into the world, Aphrodite’s Little one had already damaged up; although in a manner there was actually nowhere left to go after such an insane report. With that in thoughts, Roussos’ subsequent schmaltzy, unchallenging balladry can virtually be seen as remedy.
666 is on sale now through UMR.