Tag Archives: Aphrodite’s Child

139. all the seats were occupied

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Second of two in a row from possibly the most evil album of all time, Aphrodite’s Child’s 666, a four sided monster of a concept completely concerned with … well, what is it all about? According to principal composer and keyboard wizard Vangelis Papathanassiou said, “the answer to the question 666 is today.” Lyricist Costas Ferris (taking a break from his main job of film directing) has been less elusive, citing the central concept as a counter-cultural interpretation of the Book of Revelation, in which a circus show based on the apocalypse performs for an audience at the same time that the real apocalypse is happening outside the circus tent … with All the Seats are Occupied the prolonged and climactic point where these two apocalypses finally collide and all hell breaks loose. Literally. But is it really hell? Aphrodite’s Child being a rarity for all time, a psyche-prog-pop-rock outfit straight outa Greece, apocalypse being a Greek word not for the the catastrophic End of All Things, but for the drawing back a sheet, an unveiling of a new and mysterious thing. So why all the panic humanity?

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140. the four horsemen

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Aphrodite’s Child being a Greek psyche-prog outfit who didn’t seem to recognize a boundary between sweetest syrup and the hottest fires of hell, musically speaking. It was all just part of the same grand feast. At least, that’s how it feels on 666, their third and biggest and most extreme album, and their most evil, some might argue – the four-sided concept being no less than a musical adaptation of the final chapter of the Holy Bible, the Book of Revelation. With the Four Horsemen being the closest any single track comes to pulling everything together into a single, cohesive (almost) radio friendly unit shifter, the Lamb having opened the first seal, the visions thus unleashed.

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012. The Final Countdown*

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Installment #12. of The Final Countdown aired Saturday-June-16-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

The Final Countdown* is Randophonic’s longest and, if we’re doing it right, most relevant countdown yet – the end of result of a complex process that’s still evolving such is the strangely existential nature of the project: the 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here, whatever that means. What it means is over a year of radio, if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?

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Installment #12 of The Final Countdown* went like this.

1070. Temptations – masterpiece
1069. Blues Project – flute thing
1068. Simon & Garfunkel – we’ve got a groovey thing goin
1067. Prince – automatic
1066. Peter Hammill – the Institute of Mental Health [burning]
1065. Aphrodite’s Child – Aegean
1064. Howard Shore – The Black Meat
1063. Ill Gotten Gains – spirit of 67
1062. John Zorn – the little lieutenant of the loving god
1061. Shadows – wonderful land
1060. Bob Dylan – blue moon
1059. Ultramarine – saratoga (upstate mix)
1058. Keltic Electric – Wild Mountain Thyme
1057. My Bloody Valentine – loomer
1056. John Klemmer – third stone from the sun
1055. Animal Collective – Who Could Win a Rabbit
1054. Grateful Dead – cosmic Charlie
1053. DS Crew – frontier
1052. Todd Rundgren – healing [part 1]

Randophonic airs pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and/or download options usually available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

596. we were all uprooted

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First there was Aphrodite’s Child and its mad fusions of extreme psychedelia and extreme pop. Eventually, there was an Academy Award winning soundtrack so definitive it’s since become kind of a cliché. In the middle somewhere is Earth, Vangelis Papathanasiou‘s first solo album, where the two extremes fuse and find all kinds of room to move. Aeons of it as We Were All Uprooted attests, both ethereal and grounded, like history itself shrouded in mist, the clues buried in the earth.

(photo source)

46. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #46 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday September 16th (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Youtube playlist (not entirely accurate).

The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.

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Part Forty-Six of the journey went as follows (38-29):

  • Donovan – hurdy gurdy man
  • Aphrodite’s Child – the four horsemen
  • Aphrodite’s Child – all the seats were occupied
  • Mothers of Invention – brown shoes don’t make it
  • Beatles – I am the Walrus
  • Genesis – dancing with the moonlit knight
  • Van Morrison – astral weeks
  • Gentle Giant – knots
  • King Crimson – 21st Century schizoid man
  • Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn [part 1]

Fresh episodes air pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

657. the end of the world

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In which Aphrodite’s Child (featuring a young Vangelis among other Greek psyche-prog weirdos) deliver a nugget of pop drama that’s equal parts syrupy and creepy in all the right ways. Come, child, to the end of world which is not all fire and brimstone, plagues and pestilence — it’s just a quiet little place I know about, far, far away from your parents and your friends. Where nobody will hear our ecstatic screams.

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