TheMan
Group: Members
Posts: 105
Joined: July 2002 |
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Posted: July 15 2002, 07:02 |
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It is incredible that one single person can preduce such a varity of brilliant music! It is already amazing that a single composer and musicial can produce a so intense and subtile piece of work as Ommadawn. Or that a single person can create the mysteriously and lovely sounding Incantations, or the elegant catchy but heavy Crises (the title track). But to being able to do all of it, that is crazy...
And with TSODE he once again proved his unlimited potential as composer (despite some of the parts sounds very hastly produced). IMHO no Mike work has so much feeling and subtile ideas as this one. Mike often proves his genious in the details (which often are too subtile to be detectable for the music press and the 'experts' . This is very much true for TSODE. All these tiny interacting details going on in the backgrounds of the masterpieces InTheBeginning, LetThereBeLight, OnlyTimeWillTell, Ascension, ... listen to the very elaborate and fine (but unspectacular) texture in the first minutes of Supernova, it sounds very simple but it is complex. Brilliant also to reuse these chords in the beginning of Ascension. In the 80's Mike had his peak as 'spectaculare guitarist', with perfect control in high speed and always with stand-out solo ideas. In the beginning of the 90's he clearly experimented with a more introvert and 'slower' guitar playing, evident many times in TBII, and peaking in TSODE. IMHO no MO guitar playing has reached higher expression level
than the very sensible playing in the first part of Ascension, closely followed by the playing in LetThereBeLight. Brilliant!
(Bt the way, there is much similar feeling in the guitar on PachaMama).
I also want to empasize OnlyTimeWillTell, which I consider to be among the most underestimated MO materials ever. The very transition to it (already mentioned by me in this forum) has an amazing ratio 'expression/simplicity'. Please think about this: would you, Dear Fan, ever (ever! think about such a simple transition, such a simple theme as these computerized beeps? Would you ever get the idea to let them go on the entire following piece? The very simplicity of it! It takes a genious to DARE doing this.
(To me this few second long transition describes the risky scientific transition of Live from earth to some distant planet, a project taking 1000s of years, described in the book by Clark. They stand for Computerized Life Sustain, and when the chords reappear 'on the other side' we know that the most risky part was successful. Now only time will tell if the very replanting of life will be successful). (Feel free to comment this Mike).
Although being a 'dye-hard'-fan loving rather much of Mike's production (like the collaboration with Pekka Pojola, Amarok, Boxed Hergest Ridge part I, the Taurus cycle, etc) I do not hesitate making the following statement: The TSODE pieces mentioned above are the very best ever, the MO All Time Masterpiece.
Just great Mike... and I was pleased to here the same kind of ambitious low-profile music in the brilliant NoMansLand and The ReturnToTheOrigin.
TheMan
ps. Please, Mike, forget the 'sax' on the next release.
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