Blade Runner (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Vangelis recorded, mixed and produced the Blade Runner score at Nemo Studios in London between December 1981 and April 1982, improvising to videotape of scenes from the film. His instruments were the Yamaha CS-80, a Roland VP-330, a Prophet 10, a Jupiter 4, a Minimoog, an E-mu Emulator, a Steinway grand, a Fender Rhodes, a Yamaha CP-80, gongs, timpani and tubular bells, through a Lexicon 224 reverb and onto a 24-track Lyrec tape machine. The sound he made from these was not released at the time. A 1982 orchestral version by the New American Orchestra (Full Moon, with a Warner release in 1987, according to Filmtracks) was disowned by Vangelis and Ridley Scott, and bootlegs circulated through the 1990s.

The official album came out on June 6, 1994 (Filmtracks says June 21) on East West in Europe and Atlantic in the US. It reached 20 on the UK albums chart and 14 on the Billboard vinyl chart in 2013, and went gold in the UK, Brazil and Spain. Demis Roussos sings and Dick Morrissey plays saxophone on "Love Theme" according to Wikipedia, though the Nemo Studios site credits Roussos on "Tales of the Future". Four tracks use film dialogue. A 2007 three-CD set, Blade Runner Trilogy, added 43 minutes of unreleased cues, including "Dr. Tyrell's Owl" and "Deckard and Roy's Duel", and a third disc of new music inspired by the film. AllMusic called the 1994 release as bleak and electronically chilling as the film itself and MusicRadar the pinnacle of synthesiser soundtracks; Filmtracks gave it two stars.