Mike Oldfield - Tres Lunas (Bonus CD)

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Music reviews of Tres Lunas (Bonus CD)

Music Review: Polished music with nowhere to go
Rating: 2 Stars

Being a great fan of Mike Oldfield, I had some really high expectations as I put the CD in my player. But after the first initial listening, I must admit that I was quite a bit let down: is this really the same guy who created the Tubular Bells suite and Songs From Distant Earth? Okay, I recognize the sounds - the same pretty keyboard and synthesizer arrangements, the same sampled percussion loops and same exquisitely played guitars, but something is completely missing - I couldn't put my finger on it first, but after a while I came up with the fault: the music sounds a bit tired and bored with itself. Pretty much like if Mr Oldfield was sitting in his studio composing, arranging and recording, but would rather have been somewhere else doing something quite different.

Most of the songs on the album are built around a simple little melody fragment played on the piano or some other sampled sound, pinned down by fairly basic drum and percussion loops. Various instruments are gradually brought in and out of the mix until finally all instruments are playing their own parts pretty much without any interaction whatsoever. A few spoken female voices finish the arrangements and the layers are then again stripped off until only the main melody remains and the song ends.

Yes, it's all pretty and neat, all skillfully played and nicely balanced, but these onion-layer arrangements appear to have been polished into an almost glass-like smoothness - it's like a pretty movie without a story or a main character. The album sounds a bit clinical or almost mathematical, without fire and spirit, without catchy hooks or melodies - actually without anything to hold on to. Mike Oldfield has always been skillful mixing in some dirty and gritty and almost bizarre elements into his music thus breaking up the polished perfection, but this time these elements are non-existant.

Tres Lunas actually sounds a little bit like some kind of demo for some synthesizer workstation or recording facility. The usage of an absolutely horrible saxophone sample in some songs also remains a total mystery to me: I simply can't understand why Mike Oldfield didn't hire a real musician playing a real saxophone instead of trying to play a sampled sax with a guitar controller. Now it only sounds artificial and *utterly* annoying.

I really don't want to be overly critical, because Tres Lunas is really not such a bad album - it is nice and relaxing background music while doing something else, like cooking, cleaning up or something similar where the music is not supposed to be the focus of your attention. I understand that it is not an easy task to come up with a masterpiece every time. From any other artist, this album would receive a higher ranking, but I know that Mike Oldfield can do so much better!

Description of Tres Lunas (Bonus CD)

New Age CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock