Jon And Vangelis - Private Collection - 1983 (24/96 Vinyl Rip)

Private Collection is the third studio album produced by Jon & Vangelis (Jon Anderson and Vangelis), released by Polydor in 1983. "He is Sailing" was released as a single shortly before the album. The music is composed by Vangelis and the lyrics by Jon Anderson.
This is i.m.o. one of their best albums and most suitable for late night play.. Enjoy this atmospheric album!



Review:

Another beautiful album to add to your collection of music, providing you like mellow gentle moods. Neither the texture of this music nor the sound of its recording and production are spectacular, but there is a definite unique gentle mood Private Collection contains. Our focus here is on the poetic words of Jon Anderson, not nearly as obscured as his Close To The Edge of comprehension, but more refined and poetic than a lot of his later, accessible thoughts of Yes.

Some of the most spectacular expressions of Jon Anderson I find here on this album in And When The Night Comes. Horizon and Polonaise contain some great lyrics as well. Private Collection is my favorite album born out of a surprising (us back then) collaboration of Jon Anderson (vocalist of Yes) and Vangelis (by then of the masters and most prolific creators of electronic music). Their first album Short Stories came to life in 1980, was followed by The Friends Of Mr. Cairo in 1981 and by Private Collection in 1983. I really feel that although they are all interesting the best music is on Private Collection.

Please watch out, this music is very soft and mellow (even when compared against their other albums) and many of you will dispose it as something below the elevator music. Those who don't mind such moods will notice that now, over 25 years later this music is as powerful as it was back then. This is truly one of these albums which fly above time that affects a lot of other music. That is because the style of these songs is hard to classify and was not carried by many. I guess they could be called electro-acoustic ballads.

If you play this album on repeat for a few hours you may end up in sort of a trance which would be hard for you to believe when you first listen to these songs. Nevertheless this music does posses some strange power of putting you in front of the voice and meanings of Jon Anderson if you surround yourself with it and only with it for a while. That is the best way to listen to this album and to get to really know it at first. My favorite ones are Horizon, 23 minute long ballad which musically involves us the most and And When The Night Comes which contains one of the most powerful, accurate and wise lyrics I know. Both these songs are totally worth the price of this album. They are spectacular and very different from one another. Deven Gadula - Amazon.com


Track List:

1. Italian Song
2. And When the Night Comes
3. Deborah
4. Polonaise
5. He Is Sailing
6. Horizon