Vangelis - Blade Runner - Ultimate Edition (1982) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Greek musician Vangelis died about a week ago as I write this in late May 2022. He was 79 years old. Occasional guest posted Mike Solof is a big fan of the 1982 sci-fi movie "Blade Runner" and its music. Personally, I'm not really into instrumental movie soundtrack music. But Mike is very excited about this particular release and wants it to reach a wider audience, so he's asked me if I could post it here, as well as at PJ's music blog "Albums I Wish Existed." 

As if Mike's style, he's written a PDF file with detailed notes. I'll leave most of the explanation to him in those notes. But I'll just briefly say that when the movie first was released, it wasn't popular enough for a proper soundtrack release too. Over the years, the movie grew to classic status, so various official soundtrack releases did happen. But each of these was botched, including music not in the movie and leaving out other music actually in the movie. Mike has been working on this for many years, and has put together an "ultimate edition" from lots of different sources.

This was released as the "Albums I Wish Existed" blog a few days ago. But I noticed that many of the songs went deep into the red in their audio profiles, meaning there was a lot of distortion. I asked Mike for the original FLAC files, and converted them into mp3s myself, then adjusted the volume levels. There was only a little bit of red in his FLAC files, and I elminated that with my adjustments. So maybe this version will sound a bit better.

There's so much music that it's been split into two albums. Here's the track listing for Disc 1:

01 Ladd Company Fanfare (John Williams)
02 Prologue and Main Titles (Vangelis)
03 Leon's Test (Vangelis)
04 Rain... Peals of Thunder... And Sounds of a November Night (Ensemble Nipponia)
05 Los Angeles 2019 (Vangelis)
06 The Blue Room (Vangelis)
07 Flight to Tyrell Corporation (Vangelis)
08 Deckard Meets Rachael (Vangelis)
09 Deckard Meets Rachael [Reprise Version] (Vangelis)
10 Rachael's Voight-Kampff Test [Dr. Tyrell's Owl] (Vangelis)
11 Harps of the Ancient Temples (Gail Laughton)
12 At Mr. Chews (Vangelis)
13 Memories of Green (Vangelis)
14 Blade Runner Blues [Full Length Version] (Vangelis)
15 I'm Hungry JF (Vangelis)
16 Prelude to Deckard's Dream (Vangelis)
17 Deckard's Dream (Vangelis)
18 Thinking of Rachael (Vangelis & Dick Morrisey)
19 Esper Analysis [Longing & Empty Streets] (Vangelis)
20 Esper Machine Noises (Vangelis)
21 Animoid Row, Part 1 [Tales of the Future] (Vangelis)
22 Animoid Row, Part 2 (Vangelis)
23 Leon's Room (Vangelis)
24 Qu'ran (Brian Eno & David Byrne)

And here's the track listing for Disc 2:

01 Taffey Lewis' Club (Vangelis)
02 Salome's Dance (Vangelis)
03 Waiting for Zhora (Vangelis)
04 One More Kiss, Dear (Vangelis)
05 Zhora's Retirement (Vangelis)
06 I Am the Business (Vangelis)
07 I Dreamt Music [Alternate Love Theme Version] (Vangelis)
08 I Dreamt Music [Alternate Prelude to Love Theme Version] (Vangelis)
09 Love Theme (Vangelis)
10 The Blimp (Ensemble Nipponia)
11 Morning at the Bradbury (Vangelis)
12 The Prodigal Son Brings Death [Prelude]- Will You Help Us (Vangelis)
13 The Prodigal Son Brings Death [Interlude]- Elevator To Tyrell's Bedroom (Vangelis)
14 The Prodigal Son Brings Death [Postlude]- Queen To Bishop 6 (Vangelis)
15 The Prodigal Son Brings Death [Outro]- I Want More Life... Father (Vangelis)
16 The Prodigal Son Brings Death [Demo Version] (Vangelis & the English Chamber Choir)
17 Bradbury Apartments [Demo Version] (Vangelis)
18 Dangerous Days (Vangelis)
19 Roy Enters the Bradbury (Vangelis)
20 Wounded Animals (Vangelis)
21 Tears in Rain (Vangelis)
22 Rachael Sleeps [Unveiled Twinkling Space] (Vangelis)
23 End Titles (Vangelis)

This album is so big that I split the download file in two:

https://www.imagenetz.de/eSuEL

https://www.imagenetz.de/bND2E

There are several different official covers, due to the different versions that have come out over the decades. Mike picked this one for his cover, without any changes.