INCANTATIONS

Incantations is among the four of Mike Oldfield albums I've heard so far, the most fantastic. Like its predecessors, the album consists of a single song of long duration, but this has incredible 72 minutes - and were some of the best minutes of my experience as proghead.

The music is divided into four parts, each occupying one side of the vinyl - yes, a double album (although the reissues on CD it was released as a single disk). But the difference of Incantations to its predecessors is that it is a very minimalist album and their musical themes take much longer to develop. This is due to the effect of the "circle of fifths" used by Oldfield: each song structure (ie each musical theme) requires a development of twelve keys, before another structure is introduced. With this, the music itself takes much longer to develop than usual in the career of Mike.

However I do not have much problem with it - although sometimes a theme seems really tired and take your music anywhere. Aside from that, Incantations is a true work of art, with wonderful sections: his intro, for example, is out of this world, with that divine orchestration and his majestic flute. not to mention the wonderful passages with African percussion, showing one side and "world music".

4 stars!

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