BLADE RUNNER (OST)

Vangelis' most enduring soundtrack work might also be his absolute best album. With evocative quotes lifted from the movie adding texture here and there, the soundtrack is the perfect evocation of the movie's brilliant mingling of the futuristic melding of cultures with the loneliness, isolation, and nostalgia of characters to whom memory is everything - and yet whose memories may be fabricated. Even the phony trad-jazz ballad One More Kiss Dear, whilst at first seeming out of place with the rest of the album, manages to capture the androids' dilemma perfectly; what appears to be a genuine memento from yesteryear is, like their memories from before their "incep" dates, an ingenious and artificial fabrication.

For the rest of the tracks, the dizzy blend of sparse classical piano and cutting edge synthesisers suggests that Eno had been playing close attention to Brian Eno's ambient experiments of the years leading up to this, and it is obvious that he has learned much from it. A classic of electronic music which proves without a shadow of a doubt that synthesisers can be as emotive, passionate, and heartfelt as any other instrument.