Incantations

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the ambient feel of everything else on the album. It's still good, but somehow slightly out of place. Take most of part 1, add mere sprinkles from 2 and 3, and all of part 4 and you have a solid 4 star effort. But as is, we are dealing with a lullaby more than a magic spell, more so than Mr Oldfield might have intended. Hence 3 stars, good but flawed. exception of Part Three, where lead guitar very much dominates). Through the strident, dramatic string synth patterns of Part One

slower variation) for the album's coda. Prior is magnificent at taking this mundane poem and making it into a mystical and

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his signature pastoral Celtic vibe via flute and acoustic instruments, albeit much more sparingly employed this time around, it's had Oldfield not extended the piece to almost 20 minutes. Part three is probably the best as features Oldfield's distinctive guitar Extending the length of his compositions and pushing the idea of the multi-part suite to the limit, mysterious chant. But its the double repetition of this and the never changing vibraphone theme from earlier in the albums part guest vocalist Maddy Prior reprises her near faux vocal recitation from Longworth's Song Of Hiawatha (reprised from part 2 in a

In general, Mike introduces the themes repeated times before starting the variations and solos. TheIn June 1978, after a road trip to Italy and Greece with his brother and time at home with his father had failed to help his situation, Oldfield was recommended to attend an Exegesis seminar by the wife of his studio engineer. After the three-day assertiveness course Oldfield said he felt "nothing but absolute relief and euphoria". [12] I guess that it is better not to listen to this work in its entirety, but one piece or two is a pretty good In its final form, Incantations took shape as a double album and separated into four distinct parts, each one taking up one side of an LP record. Oldfield had felt guilty that he had not released new material in three years, which influenced him to make a double. [7] Oldfield named composer and electronic musician Terry Riley as a big influence on Incantations, particularly his use of ostinato. [8] At 72 minutes in total length, Incantations remained Oldfield's longest album until his 2005 double album, Light + Shade.