Holger
Group: Members
Posts: 1506
Joined: Feb. 2003 |
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Posted: Nov. 04 2009, 04:45 |
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OK, here are some thoughts about the book:
It's been a nice read, I wouldn't exactly say great, but it certainly was enjoyable. However, it is nothing like what I expected! From what the music conveyed to me, I had always assumed that the bulk of the story would be set in space, with maybe some underwater scenes; turns out that in fact, almost none of it is set in space, very little underwater, and most of it on the surface of a - watery, but otherwise very Earth-like - planet. That was quite a surprise.
Has it changed my perception of the music? I don't think so, really. In fact, listening back to the album, I quickly forgot about the book and that it was supposed to have anything to do with it. I really can't say that the music matches the imagery I got from the book - the story isn't really floaty and dreamy like the music at all.
It seems to me that, rather than actually trying to set the book to music, Mike just picked some pieces of inspiration from it that served his purpose in the first place, and ignored the rest. In fact, some of the track titles don't seem to refer to anything that can be found in the book. I don't really think that the album is supposed to be the very music played during the farewell concert in the book either (as has been suggested); while that was certainly an inspiration, and "Lament for Atlantis" obviously refers to it (as well as the b-sides "Song of the Boatmen" and "The Spectral Army"), events like the arrival of Magellan or the discovery of the Sunken Forest take place long after that piece is supposed to have been written.
Speaking of music, I found it quite amusing that Sibelius' Fifth Symphony - well known to be Mike's favourite piece of music - is specifically mentioned as not having made it to the Thalassan archives due to restrictions in storage capacity - in other words, it was not considered important enough to be preserved.
Two thoughts about the album that never occured to me before: firstly, "Oceania" and "The Shining Ones" both sound quite like something out of Amarok; and secondly, throughout the album, the drums are too quiet! I found that really quite frustrating this time around, it takes much power away from the music, even though I understand that it's probably supposed to be like that.
Other than that, my opinion of the album has been confirmed by listening back to it: it's really good, very cleverly written and well-crafted, definitely the best album of this kind that I've heard. Not that I've heard very many, however, because this kind of music just isn't for me, and apart from Mike's output, I never listen to anything of the sort (can't stand Enigma, for example, and haven't been able to get into Deep Forest either).
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