Blade Runner (Music From The Original Soundtrack) by Vangelis on Album Whale

i keep returning to this soundtrack since discovering the “esper mk. ii” bootleg editions, and vangelis is now my most listened artist because of it.

i own the official 1994 cd, having fallen in love with the movie on first viewing, but the esper version sheds a whole new light on it. it collects every piece of vangelis’s music and incidental atmospheric sound that clever people have extracted from all the film’s versions, on every format, and even video games. i know there’s since been an official “blade runner trilogy, 25th anniversary” 3cd release doing something similar, but i haven’t heard it yet. the esper edition is easy to find online, and you can cut the pointless bits, like short background noise fragments, to build your own ultimate version of this immersive experience.

one highlight is ‘one more kiss dear’, which has a distant transistor radio sound, complete with interference and breaking-up moments. it feels even more evocative, always on the verge of collapsing and revealing the edges of the false reality that is part of the movie’s theme.

other great pieces missing from the official cd include ‘spinner ascent (los angeles november 2019)’, ‘deckard meets rachel (rachel’s voight kampff test)’, ‘morning at the bradbury’ and ‘the prodigal son brings death’. i’ll never tire of slipping into the world this music creates. vangelis shows absolute genius in composing, building atmosphere, and making a soundtrack as expressive and important as the movie itself.

Blade Runner (Music From The Original Soundtrack)

by Vangelis

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