This album finds Vangelis for the first time making heavy use of sequencers (on all tracks apart from the strange but enchanting ‘Ballad’). He does this quite imaginatively and never loses sight of the fact that he’s making music - therefore the sequencers make up just one more dimension supporting the thrust of the musical argument. The title-track continues where Albedo left off and could have appeared on that album. But ‘Ballad’ is entirely different and features Vangelis himself on distorted nonsense-vocals.
In ‘Dervish D’ and the closing ‘3+3’ the sequencers return in devastating form - two great fast tracks. Inbetween stands one of Vangelis’ best-known pieces, the profound ballad ‘To The Unknown Man’. It slowly builds upon the opening conversation between bass-line and main melody, adding harmonies and marching-band percussion along the way before it reaches its climax which is completely different musically but a fitting climax nonetheless, nicely getting Vangelis out of the conundrum of how on earth to end the great first part build-up.
