''See You Later'' is an album by the Greek

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

composer

Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...

, released in November 1980. It breaks quite violently with the style he employed in the late 1970s and later, relying much more on vocals and being more experimental and returning (in many respects) to his early 1970s work like ''

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

'' or ''

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''. It was never released in the United States, until it was remastered in 2016 as part of the ''Delectus'' boxset.

Overview

''See You Later'' is Vangelis' most wide-ranging work of the 1980s, with more radical musical and lyrical themes than are found in his other albums. The

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. So ...

is bleaker than most of his records, incorporating negative and satirical intonations of a dystopian future. Subjects touched on include funerals, masks, and ready-to-wear and ready-to-eat things. The lyrics are written by Vangelis in English, French and Italian; they use electronic terminology and incorporate references to lost love, and the downfall of humanity due to the influence of technology. The title track lyrics say "See you later then... alive or dead". Track "Suffocation" was inspired by the

Seveso disaster Seveso (; lmo, label= Lombard, Séves ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Monza and Brianza, in the Region of Lombardy. The economy of the town has traditionally been based on the furniture industry. Its name comes from the river o ...

in Italy. The album's sleeve shows an ice-covered ocean with a woman wearing sunglasses to protect her eyes; the image uses optical compression in the horizontal axis. The inner sleeve is also disturbing, displaying a character seated in a greenhouse wearing an eerie-looking gas mask.

Instruments and style

Vangelis plays all instruments:

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

and drums. The Korg KR-55 drum machine is used extensively. Michel Ripoche plays the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

on #4. Vocals featured are by

Jon Anderson John Roy Anderson (born 25 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the lead singer of the progressive rock band Yes, which he formed in 1968 with bassist Chris Squire. He was a member of the band across thre ...

(tracks #5 and #6), Peter Marsh (track #1), Christina and Maurizio Arcieri from the group Krisma (track #5) and

Cherry Vanilla Cherry Vanilla (born Kathleen Dorritie; October 16, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, publicist, and actress. After working as an actress in Andy Warhol's ''Pork'', she worked as a publicist for David Bowie, before becoming a rock singer. ...

(track #4 narrative).

Composition

"I Can't Take It Anymore" is sung by Peter Marsh through a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

over a deep synthesizer glissando bass, a synthesizer choir and KR-55 hihats. "Multitrack Suggestion" is

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...

-style and

Eurodisco Eurodisco (also spelled as Euro disco) is the variety of European forms of electronic dance music that evolved from disco in the late 1970s, incorporating elements of pop and rock into a disco-like continuous dance atmosphere. Many Eurodisco ...

, which builds on a polysynth and upbeat KR-55 pulse; the choir sings some terms associated with

analog synthesizer An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of ...

technology (VCO, VCF). "Memories of Green" is a slow piano-based piece with a backdrop of synthesizer sounds and bleeps from the 1978 Bambino electronic game "UFO Master Blaster Station". The piano used on this piece was a

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a f ...

Grand piano. Its distinctive "drunk" sound was achieved with the use of an Electroharmonix Electric Mistress flanger pedal. This song was used in Vangelis' subsequent soundtrack to the 1982 film ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick ...

''. "Not A Bit – All Of It" has vocals by

. "Suffocation" employs the KR-55 and a saw wave synthesizer melody, followed by an eerie brass and

megaphone A megaphone, speaking-trumpet, bullhorn, blowhorn, or loudhailer is usually a portable or hand-held, cone-shaped acoustic horn used to amplify a person's voice or other sounds and direct it in a given direction. The sound is introduced int ...

emergency announcements in Italian. The second (slower) half of the piece features vocals by Jon Anderson and a narrative in Italian, by Krisma ( Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser). "See You Later" has Vangelis on electric piano and staccato male atonal choir. About halfway through, there is a child narrative in French, with Anderson's vocals used in the finale.

Track listing

All songs composed and written by

. A test 8-track test pressing (never officially released) has also surfaced without the title track, but includes the track "My Love" which was featured on a previous single "My Love/Domestic Logic 1", along with two additional tracks "Neighbours Above" and "Fertilization". Side One: # "My Love" – 4:02 # "Not A Bit – All Of It" – 2:55 # "Neighbours Above" – 4:48 # "I Can't Take It Anymore" – 5:38 # "Memories of Green" – 5:42 Side Two: # "Fertilization" – 7:28 # "Suffocation" – 9:22 # "Multi-Track Suggestion" – 5:25 The track "Memories of Green" was later used by Vangelis in his

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

for the 1982 film ''

''.

Personnel

* Vangelis -

s and all instruments, Vocalese ncreditedon "Not a Bit – All of It" *

- vocals on "Suffocation" and "See You Later" * Raphael Preston - noises ambino Ufo Master Blaster Station, Uncredited* Krisma ( Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser) - Italian voice (Uncredited) on "Suffocation" * Peter Marsh - vocals ncreditedon "I Can't Take It Any More" and "Multi-Track Suggestion" *

, Andrew Hoy - vocals on "Not a Bit – All of It" * Michel Ripoche - violin on "Not a Bit – All of It"

Production

* Vangelis : Producer, arranger, photography, design * Raphael Preston, John Walker : Engineers * Raine Shine : Studio assistant * Veronique Skawinska, Alwyn Clayden : Design, photography

References

* Personnel + Production : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Vangelis-See-You-Later/release/4392264

External links

''See You Later''
at Vangelis Lyrics

at Vangelis Collector Site {{Authority control 1980 albums Vangelis albums Polydor Records albums