Yo dawg, I heard you like Vangelis and Microneurosurgery

January 22, 2025 1:42 PM

In 1998 Greek neurosurgeon Dr. Stergios Tegos published a documentary of his work in the field of microneurosurgery. Nearly 11 hours across three VHS tapes and accompanied by a 253 page book, Tegos' film Μικρονευροχειρουργική με βίντεοταινίες, or "Microneurosurgery With Video Tapes", shows- in graphic detail-educational footage of brain surgery techniques over 35 separate surgical cases. Sensing that 10 hours of spinal lesion surgery footage was maybe a bit much even for seasoned doctors, Tegos decided to set the film to music and asked his longtime friend Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου- better known to the world as Vangelis- if he would create a soundtrack.

Never available to non-professionals, the film essentially disappeared into obscurity and was essentially lost until Vangelis Collector’s Don Fennimore found a copy while traveling in Greece and wrote about it at his site. As with many Vangelis soundtracks, the complete audio has never been made commercially available. A bootleg CD/DVD combo was made in 2018, and several homemade edited versions of the soundtrack exist, with the narration carefully edited out to create an almost 9 hour ambient/electronic masterpiece.

Dr. Tegos' website seems to no longer exist, and the publisher no longer has copies of his videos for sale, but you can see the complete set of films on his Vimeo (warning: graphic footage of neurosurgery)

<sup>Title swiped from a (previous mention on the blue, buried in a deleted post from 2012, apologies Damienmce)

via Linkfest</sup>

posted by 40 Watt (8 comments total)

this is delightful, I'm not going to watch the video but i'll put on the soundcloud and imagine tiny little instruments digging around in my brain instead
posted by Sebmojo at 1:57 PM on January 22 [4 favorites]

You have really got to be dedicated to your art to stay awake thru that. It's pretty much an aural anaesthetic and some guy going on about something (I dunno - it's all … I'm not even going to finish that one).

But yeah, it's pretty damn relaxing.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:58 PM on January 22

This is a fascinating post. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by mightshould at 1:59 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]

Amazing! Who knew there was a lost Vangelis soundtrack floating around out there? Looking forward to diving in.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:38 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]

THIS IS WHY METAFILTER
posted by latkes at 2:55 PM on January 22 [17 favorites]

Perhaps Emerson, Lake, and Palmer might have been a better choice.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:10 PM on January 22 [2 favorites]

This is like Koyaanisqatsi, but in your head
posted by chavenet at 2:43 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]

Is there nothing Vangelis can't do?
posted by meehawl at 9:00 AM on January 23