Album Title
Mike Oldfield
Artist Icon Music of the Spheres (2008)
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First Released

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Genre

Genre Icon Progressive Rock

Mood

Mood Icon Reflective

Style

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Album Description
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Music of the Spheres (dt.: Sphärenmusik) ist ein Album des britischen Musikers Mike Oldfield aus dem Jahr 2008. Nach verschiedenen Abstechern in das Genre des Chill Out ist dies eine Rückkehr zu Oldfields klassischen Wurzeln.

Am 23. Februar 2006 erwähnte Oldfield bei einem BBC-Interview erstmals ein langes Instrumentalstück, an dem er gerade arbeite. Die Grundidee sei eine Umsetzung der antiken Vorstellung, die Bewegung von Himmelskörpern könnte musikalisch ausgedrückt werden (siehe auch Sphärenmusik).

In Zusammenarbeit mit Karl Jenkins und dem Pianisten Lang Lang begannen die Aufnahmen im Juni 2007. Ursprünglich für den 31. Oktober 2007 angekündigt, wurde die Veröffentlichung mehrfach verschoben. Folgende Veröffentlichungstermine waren geplant: Im November 2007: 5., 9., 12. Dann wurde der Termin auf Januar 2008 und schließlich auf den 4. März 2008 verschoben (Großbritannien: 17. März).

Am 7. März 2008 wurde das Album im Guggenheim-Museum in Bilbao, Spanien, vor geladenen Gästen und unter Beteiligung von Hayley Westenra uraufgeführt. Die Aufnahme ist seit dem 17. März auf iTunes erhältlich und seit November 2008 Bestandteil der limitierten Version des Studioalbums.
(Wikipedia)
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User Album Review
If you're going to prove your detractors wrong better to do it in grand style. In his autobiography (Changeling 2007) Mike Oldfield describes how, after being the butt of patronising attitudes whilst a member of Kevin Ayers' band, he wanted to come up with something that would make everyone sit up and take him seriously. Well, it doesn't get much grander than Tubular Bells, and more or less the whole wide world (give or take a few million sales here and there) sat up and took notice.
The phenomenal success didn't necessarily make him happy. Several times in his book he talks of being grateful for the abiding interest in Bells whilst simultaneously resentful about having everything he does compared to that first record. Despite such stylistically diverse pieces such Ommadawn, the catchy pop and rock of Moonlight Shadow or Family Man, or even the techno-tinged moods of 2005's Light And Shade, he's never quite escaped the gilded cage which his debut album has constructed around him.
It's no great surprise, therefore, that the dancing string motif of the opening track Harbinger is clearly drawn from the same gene pool as the first fruit of his loins. Similarly the stirring bass figures which stoke the engines of Musica Universalis bear a striking resemblance to those underpinning the Viv Stanshall-narrated coda of Tubular Bells.
Back then the guitar was pretty much the star. Here Oldfield's tunes have been threaded into Karl Jenkins' opulent orchestral embroidery. Not surprisingly Music Of The Spheres does sound an awful lot like an Adiemus album at times. Shabda in particular has those choral voices that Jenkins pushed to the fore though mercifully aren’t lumbered with that ridiculous invented 'ethnic' language which Jenkins devised.
Perhaps because Oldfield's presence is limited to a few cameo appearances the album lacks the personality and tension which he achieved with side one of Tubular Bells. And if that seems unfair then it's because so much of Music Of The Spheres sounds like an old arrival rather than a new departure.


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