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Topic: For me this is the best MO record since 1992< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Lancelot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 24 2017, 19:57

I have to admit that Mike's music since TB2 was not at all my cup of tee. Even the so much acclaimed TSODE didnt really impress me. I always found here and there some lovely bits, but everything was so cold somehow, and never I found the real catharsis. (The finale of TBIII is an exception, but not the album itself). And I also disliked much the cover of RTO - as I explained earlier.
 
Saying this I was quite afraid of a new dissapointment. So it took me exactly 3 days after the purchase to put the RTO CD in my player! That is so ridiculous, I was so much worrying what I will hear! And telling the truth I didn't really like the album at the first listen, because I was always comparing it to Ommadawn and Amarok that are my favourite.

But then, through the second listen some miracle happened. Although the Part I I still didn't find so strong and memorable, the Part II started to move me to tears. I found it so beautiful and uplifting in many part that I was crying as a child. And I have to admit, such thing didn't happen with me since ages.

This album  in my opinion is somewhere halfway between Guitars and Ommadawn/Amarok. There is not the grandiosity of Amarok and Ommadawn, still it is much more complex and rich in texture then Guitars. The strange thing that it is a very intimate, personal album, you see Mike playing almost all the time - yet it developes slowly through the part II into something majestic and uplifting, almost with the strength of Oldfield's best works.

I find the Ommadawn drum and chanting section at the end of part I quite forced, and there are some undeveloped ideas and random narcisstic guitar playings for me here and there in the first part. However the patchwork structure that resembles in some ways the structure of Amarok starts to get work suddenly in the second half of the album, and the finale with horseback song reference is a heart warming, beautiful and sincere crowing of the album in my opinion.

I think RTO needs at least 3 listenings to start to like it. 1: To accept it is not at all Ommadawn 2: To start to listen to it with clear mind  3. To let it really grow on you!        

But I must also admit I am yet only after the 4th listens. So who knows what will be the further stages? I sincerely hope I will have the same opinion after the 20th listen... and this record will not land in the dusty shelf where the recent ones landed!  

Anyway, now I really feel:

HAAAPPPY
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Yann Offline




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Posted: Jan. 25 2017, 07:01

Quote (Lancelot @ Jan. 24 2017, 19:57)
Saying this I was quite afraid of a new dissapointment. So it took me exactly 3 days after the purchase to put the RTO CD in my player! That is so ridiculous, I was so much worrying what I will hear! And telling the truth I didn't really like the album at the first listen, because I was always comparing it to Ommadawn and Amarok that are my favourite.

But then, through the second listen some miracle happened. Although the Part I I still didn't find so strong and memorable, the Part II started to move me to tears. I found it so beautiful and uplifting in many part that I was crying as a child. And I have to admit, such thing didn't happen with me since ages. [...]

I think RTO needs at least 3 listenings to start to like it. 1: To accept it is not at all Ommadawn 2: To start to listen to it with clear mind  3. To let it really grow on you!        

I remember when I discovered Oldfield, my favourite albums was QE2. And at the bottom of the list, there it was Hergest Ridge, and close to it, Incantations. If I was been said that I would end up enjoying them far more than QE2, I would have said "no way". And I was not the only one. Nobody liked Hergest Ridge. It was a difficult album that needed quite a few listenings to be appreciated. Now it's a classic, but when it was published it was described as a big failure. And so was Amarok. I think Oldfield kept going back to Tubular Bells because it was a great album but a easy one to listen too, which is a very difficult combination for which he always aimed. We just put all those early albums together, but back then the reception was completely different. People have a short memory.

The more I listen to it, the more I think RTO is gonna be very close to the big ones.

But I keep thinking it needs to recorded again.
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captain cavern Offline




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Posted: Jan. 25 2017, 17:56

For me, it's the best MO record since 1994.

;)

It's not a masterpiece but it's a nice surprise with beautiful melodies and a lot of f*cking great oldfieldian guitars.

The real Mike is back.
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qjamesfloyd Offline




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Posted: Jan. 26 2017, 05:49

Yes, the more times I hear the album, I seem to hear more and more guitars :)
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TubularRidgeDawn Offline




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Posted: Jan. 26 2017, 20:27

This is Mike Oldfield returning to form, and very welcome it is too! Mike is very much an experimentalist, and likes to test and try new boundaries, hence some of his 'quite different' works, and now he has gone full circle with 'Return To Ommadawn'.

And to add, if it didn't have 'Ommadawn' in the title a lot more people may have taken to it. Yet saying that a lot more people are coming around to liking it more with further listening. This seems to be a think with Mike's music, it deserves more than one flap of the ears to trully appreciate it. And once you do, you are hooked and find yourself humming or whistling those catchy tunes without knowing it!


--------------
En yab na log a toc na awd
taw may on ommadawn egg kyowl
ommadawn egg kyowl
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qjamesfloyd Offline




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Posted: Jan. 27 2017, 05:54

I know what you mean, I can't get this album out of my head, I hear it before I drop of to sleep, and when i wake in the morning it is the first sound I hear in my head. :)
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bee Offline




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Posted: Jan. 27 2017, 06:53

Quote
I know what you mean, I can't get this album out of my head, I hear it before I drop of to sleep, and when i wake in the morning it is the first sound I hear in my head. :)


same here...it is with me ALL the time...I am thinking of checking in to a clinic because this cannot be normal to want to listen to nothing but this... :O

but maybe I'll put it on just once more...


--------------
....second to the right and straight on till morning....



You heard me before
Yet you hear me again
Then I die
Till I call me again
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qjamesfloyd Offline




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Posted: Jan. 27 2017, 10:58

You and me both, hang on, I am listening to it again while I write this :) I find this album overwhelming, and I am not bothered if other people are being negative, yet again, for ME, this album is amazing.
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TubularRidgeDawn Offline




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Posted: Jan. 27 2017, 16:53

I have just had it on in the car, and will later listen with my headphones on before I go to sleep. It is spellbinding! I think I may have to check into a clinic with you, lol! :)

--------------
En yab na log a toc na awd
taw may on ommadawn egg kyowl
ommadawn egg kyowl
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bee Offline




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Joined: Jan. 2004
Posted: Jan. 29 2017, 14:44

I'm still at it.... listening yo RTO I mean...

at work today and yesterday...my journey there is, or at least can be at the moment, 42:06 minutes long...quelle surprise! the same length as the entire Return to Ommadawn on CD...I've got very creative with my usual route!! ...all kinds of detours!

Waiting for pay day - then I can purchase the album on vinyl and really wallow in it!!!  :)


--------------
....second to the right and straight on till morning....



You heard me before
Yet you hear me again
Then I die
Till I call me again
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qjamesfloyd Offline




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Posted: Jan. 30 2017, 04:57

I listened to it on repeat for a 1 hour 45 minute care journey yesterday, and it was amazing, it really benefits from the lack of compression/loudness I played it at my normal album volume but found I could turn it up further because of it, and it had no distortion, but the acoustic guitar sounded so good, you can feel the emotion from Mike's fingernails.
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10 replies since Jan. 24 2017, 19:57 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

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