Mike Oldfield - Tres Lunas (Bonus CD)
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Free Music Notes for Tres Lunas (Bonus CD)
Free Music Review: No Mans Land
Hit: 3 Stars
Confined by the daily grind and trapped by life's inadequacies you look for a way out. So you put on Mike Oldfield's latest disc "Tres Lunas" in the hope that he will give you an opportunity to vacate this planet for an hour. What you find is a collection of songs that are tragically indistinguishable and uninspiring. The first six tracks plod along, relaxing as they may be, until there is that moment that you've been waiting for, that moment of escape and pure pop bliss when "To Be Free" hits your temporal lobe like a cool tidal wave on a hot and humid summer afternoon. This is where Oldfield fans divide of course. Pop maestro or classical musician? I prefer the Oldfield pop maestro over the classical musician. "Tres Lunas" is Oldfield's 20th studio cd (excluding soundtrack, live and best of recordings). I have all 20, and I've always felt that Oldfield's pop songs were his strong suit, and his most memorable one. "Tres Lunas" taken as an instrumental cd fails to match "Tubular Bells", "Hergest Ridge", "Ommadawn", "Incantations", "Platinum", "QE2", "Tubular Bells 2" and "The Songs Of Distant Earth". This cd falls into the average category of "Amarok", "Voyager", "Tubular Bells 3", "Guitars" and "Millenium Bell". Feeling that "To Be Free" is the most inspired moment on "Tres Lunas", it conjures up those great pop moments on "Five Miles Out", "Crises", "Discovery", "Islands", "Earth Moving" and "Heaven's Open". Though one song meets my expectation, it does not make up for the other 53 minutes of electronic noodling found on this disc. This is the fourth cd in a row from Oldfield that has been less than stellar. I know he just signed a three cd deal with WEA records, so it is my hope that his next two disc show some pop daring. Oldfield has been around for nearly 30 years now, made 20 albums, so why not take some risks with his next two cds? From what I understand, Oldfield steers clear of popular demands, so is that why he lives in Ibiza, a trendy destination? Is that why he has made pop songs on many of his albums? Come on Mike, you can do better than "Tres Lunas".Free Music Review: Not too bad... But far from excellence!
Hit: 3 Stars
I loved Mike Oldfield's music since I was a teenager. I enthusiasticaly followed his development in becoming a great composer, musician and arranger. But this album in particular is not what I expected. I expected probably more than a manipulation of precise MIDI music put together in a complex blend of computer-produced loops. Most of the song themes are too easy and reminded me the procedure of "filling the emptiness with nothing". Jean-Michael Jare is one of the other artists who practice this nonsense to create "albums" containing only two or three valuable songs out of a dozen or so. In this album, Mike's "nothing" is probably to some extent better. Although, his inspiration from Enigma's tunes is no news, as he used chants techniques for Songs From Distant Earth, this time he is overusing the whispering female voice. The only part from Thou Art In Heaven for instance to not be confused with an Enigma hit, is the missing reverse-sampled Shakuhachi.My three favorite songs of this album are, in this order: Daydream which reminds at the most of the true Oldfield's style, To Be Free and Viper. Noticeable is also Turtle Island.
Free Music Review: Mike is getting old?
Hit: 3 Stars
Beeing a big Mike fan, I must say that he continues disappointing me. This CD isn't bad, but not really good either. Mike seem to progress from an innovative pioneer to a main-stream dance music maker. Fortunately, this CD is not at all as bad as the disaster 'Millenium Bell'. Thanks for that, Mike.Free Music Review: Polished music with nowhere to go
Hit: 2 Stars
Tres Lunas means Three Moons and is the name of Mike Oldfields recent album - it is in many ways very different from his previous works. Tres Lunas is a double-CD album, but you will only find music on the first disc - the second disc contains a demo game software. Mind you, a demo - not the full version. I wonder how many people will be willing to fork out additional money to play this game, I know for one that I won't. So this review will be all about the music album instead.Being a great fan of Mike Oldfield, I had some really high expectations as I put the CD in my player. But after the first initial listening, I must admit that I was quite a bit let down: is this really the same guy who created the Tubular Bells suite and Songs From Distant Earth? Okay, I recognize the sounds - the same pretty keyboard and synthesizer arrangements, the same sampled percussion loops and same exquisitely played guitars, but something is completely missing - I couldn't put my finger on it first, but after a while I came up with the fault: the music sounds a bit tired and bored with itself. Pretty much like if Mr Oldfield was sitting in his studio composing, arranging and recording, but would rather have been somewhere else doing something quite different.
Most of the songs on the album are built around a simple little melody fragment played on the piano or some other sampled sound, pinned down by fairly basic drum and percussion loops. Various instruments are gradually brought in and out of the mix until finally all instruments are playing their own parts pretty much without any interaction whatsoever. A few spoken female voices finish the arrangements and the layers are then again stripped off until only the main melody remains and the song ends.
Yes, it's all pretty and neat, all skillfully played and nicely balanced, but these onion-layer arrangements appear to have been polished into an almost glass-like smoothness - it's like a pretty movie without a story or a main character. The album sounds a bit clinical or almost mathematical, without fire and spirit, without catchy hooks or melodies - actually without anything to hold on to. Mike Oldfield has always been skillful mixing in some dirty and gritty and almost bizarre elements into his music thus breaking up the polished perfection, but this time these elements are non-existant.
Tres Lunas actually sounds a little bit like some kind of demo for some synthesizer workstation or recording facility. The usage of an absolutely horrible saxophone sample in some songs also remains a total mystery to me: I simply can't understand why Mike Oldfield didn't hire a real musician playing a real saxophone instead of trying to play a sampled sax with a guitar controller. Now it only sounds artificial and *utterly* annoying.
I really don't want to be overly critical, because Tres Lunas is really not such a bad album - it is nice and relaxing background music while doing something else, like cooking, cleaning up or something similar where the music is not supposed to be the focus of your attention. I understand that it is not an easy task to come up with a masterpiece every time. From any other artist, this album would receive a higher ranking, but I know that Mike Oldfield can do so much better!
Free Music Review: Don't Listen Too Closely...
Hit: 2 Stars
After 30 years and 20 albums, I'm surprised that Oldfield continues to make music, given the nose-dive in originality and skill that he has displayed in the last few years. Not that I wish him to stop (I still have hope that things will improve), but the last few years have yielded mostly lazy, insincere, and passionless music that isn't worthy of even the most mediocre musicians, let alone the genius behind Ommadawn and Hergest Ridge. At its best, Tres Lunas is a listenable, luke-warm piece of chill out music. At its worst, it's cheesy and soulless monotony. It's an album made up of primarily repeated drum loops and synth patterns that go on just a little too long, accentuated by mellow guitar and piano decoration. The tunes are dull to non-existent, and the pieces float by with little development or context. The arrangement is at times reminiscent of his masterpiece, The Songs of Distant Earth, but whereas that was an album of interwoven themes and moments of tension and release, Tres Lunas relies too much on it's drum loops and electronics for inspiration. It's as though Oldfield discovered a computer looping programming and simply added guitar work over the top. Take heart, though. It's not all bad. The single "To Be Free" is decent, despite some corny lyrics (If I get lost, I really don't mind/'Cause I'm me, Feelin' just fine...?!), and there are a few times when the drum loops, synth patterns, guitars, and piano sync up beautifully, as on "Firefly," "Sirius," and "Daydream" (the latter two may be his best tracks in the last five years). However, those moments are few. In interviews and promotional literature, Oldfield has actually labelled this album "chill-out music", as though he wants to excuse its dullness by encouraging us not to expect anything passionate and engaging. Well, he succeeded. But you can fill a stadium with the kind of luke-warm, semi-pleasant, and mediocre music that this aspires to be.
One more word of warning, perhaps the biggest crime of the album is the inclusion of a HORRIBLE saxaphone sample, which completely ruins the opening track "Misty," which could have otherwise been fantastic. It makes some reappearances later on, though not as prominent or disasterous.