maria
Group: Members
Posts: 928
Joined: July 2002 |
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Posted: May 03 2003, 07:15 |
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| Quote (Guest @ May 02 2003, 21:21) | Reading interviews on this man, it appears that he's finally at peace with everything, so now it's time for him to play and be a kid again. This return to youth is what troubles me most regarding the quality of his recent albums, as well as in his MusicVR project. Whether it be the few spoken lines in "Far Above the Clouds" to the infantile lyrics of "To Be Free", or even the lack of competition in MusicVR, this obsession with the child-like of qualities of naivetee, non-violence and retreating from responsibility is personally irksome...
There's nothing moving about being free , no worries, sipping pina coladas to stale reggae beats on the beach ("To Be Free"). Nor is there anything moving about floating in space while "chilling out" to some repetitive melody and ambivalent midi-saxophone sounds that wanders throught the tracks of Tres Lunas. Music VR is indeed a visual companion to its surrounding, a world devoid of conflict, battles between good and evil, and triumphant resolutions. It's rather a sort of limbo where you press the buttons and see what happen. Hence it's BORING. |
i have to say that, though i agree with a general line on your post, regarding what u say about his music since the early nineties, i don't think it could be called "a return to youth" in a kind'a pejorative way. moreover, a return to youth in his case would mean something pretty different to what one could expect from that expression, as it was said, his young years were very mature. it's true that from the moment in which he felt better with himself something changed in his music, it became "different", but this hasn't neccessarily always to lead to soulless music, it's just that it describes different moods... tsode has always been a big trip through the space if u ask me... there's pleasure and big emotion there (think about crystal clear i.e.). and there's also emotion in some bits of tubular bells ll, we've got it in 'blue saloon', 'altered state' or 'maya gold'.
regarding the lack of competition in mvr i think it's not bad, most the opposite and this is not a proper feature of childhood if u know what i mean, kids are by nature rather competitive... he's done something quite new around computer games, the visuals there provoque great pleasure, cause it's like he has been able to put in real/virtual stage what his music has always carried inside... mvr is a place full of beauty, built mainly to enjoy the flying sensation surrounded by music that doesn't lack feeling (listen to the owl's flight, or the trip to tai chi island with the firebeings, or the sprites section).indeed i find more feeling in mvr than in his other last works i.e. 'the millenium bell', in which i'd say he was thinking more about a final product for a particular date: the end of the millenium, than in his inner feelings (though, in a way, it's got some its moments, but more dedicated to the exterior than to his inside). mvr has got something inner again, his own images, his own symbols and places, fed with his music (though it's true that 'to be free' doesn't fit well with the mood of the rest of the work imho, but it's not new that lyrics have never been his most strong spot)
i've supported this new branch in his work cause it seems to me he's got there a fertile land to develope something that has always been in his music, his music has always been full of visuals, that is no new and if he mixed this with his roots, that is with his ability to make a guitar speak more than many voices, we could find something great again imho...
on the other hand it would have no much sense to ask him to come back completely to the origins, no one can do that... that is what i've criticized regarding tb2003, things go changing in every particular life and it's not possible to review something from the past without touching its essence... that's just why imho this re recording pretends something odd... that is to sweep aside all the details that were melt with the score, details that gave this masterpiece its particular character.
in my case, i don't criticize the fact that he works from scratch around other creative fields (he's an artist and if he needs to make his creativity grow in different lands, it means it is moving) it's the fact that he has wanted to filter with high modern techniques something old and good like tubular bells.
Musically Inspired, what u say about giving the bell a rest... when i watched the introduction video, i had the feeling that what is shown in the images (i may be wrong since i'm just trying to interpret the imaginery there) is a bell coming from the space to make a review trip along these thirty years, going along its/his different life's landscapes and at the end of it, when the bell reaches a calm place, that beautiful island, it goes up to the sky again, maybe he has made kind'a exorcism to make the bell get free from his old "ghosts" and now he'll let it rest to go on along new paths... well, at least this is my hope 
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...morning and evening i'm flying, i'm dreaming...
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and i really wish tb2003 is a success for him and well... the original is always there, as a bottle of good strong red wine, covered with the dust of time, kept in a dark cellar containing the essence of the old bells' spirit...
