Customer Reviews

Incantations

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

while on his first three albums ("ommadawn","hergest ridge","Tubular bells") Mike was practising his folk-rock-progressive style, here he creates a real Rock symphony.
77 minutes ("ommadawn" was lasting 36 minutes...) of a huge and bombastic rock-opera based on a poems of Ben Johnson and Longfellow (english 18 century poets) and his own experiences (in the time Mike had gone though Exegis therapy because of his psychical problems).
Whole album sounds much different than anything he had made through the next years of his career.Guitar that was so charactereistic in his earlier records is hidden here on second plan.Massive choir,orchestral arrangments,synths and opera sounds are dominating in "part 1" and "part 2".they all give album a bit Film music or classical music taste.
During last 8 minutes of "part 2" Maddie Pryor (from Steelaye span band) is singing the "Hawaiatha" poem with the background of Jabula african drums band and etheric vibraphone part (Pierre morlen from Gong,he will collaborate with Mike in the later years too).This part is hypnotising listeners because of monotoic Vocal intonations and very spiritual atmosphere...
but i save all the honours for "part 3" and "part 4" which are in my opinion one of Mike's finest instrumental works in in his whole Career.
"Part 3" starts with a cheerfull Fanfare medieval motive...but suddenly starts the maginficent long Guitar solo section...African tribal Drums are again on background along with gentle Bass riff and synths...the raw and moving Gitar solo is one of hte moments that can brought tears into your eyes because of a imposible beauty that lies underneath it.later staright to the end "part 3" goes into the nice seventies rocker with nice drums and guitars...
"part 4" is much more experimental - etheric and mysterious Vibraphone part dominates here...i have to mention also the another tribal drums section with a rhythmical Bass guitar riff and charming Guitar solo...the ending is a All time Oldfield Classic - Maddie Pryor singing "ode to diana" along with a bit christmas-like melody.guitar solo is wonderfull.....
This is definitly a magical album...takes you to a different world of ancient tribes and distant planets...it is one of the most impressive and timeless instrumental albums ever...77 minutes of pure pleasure.definitive must have for all rock fans!

It's difficult to describe this album; it's not quite like his earlier works (Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn) but yet notquite like those that came later (such as Platinum and QE2). Although I have to say it's not one of my *most* favourite MO albums, I still find myself compelled to listen to it from time to time, especially the final track (Incantations 4). For anyone who is a serious fan of Mike Oldfield, I have to recommend this. For those who are just beginning their voyage along the Oldfield path, then I'd recommend that you listen (or buy!) Ommadawn and/or Hergest Ridge first....then the orchestration on this album will make more sense. Five out of five nevertheless!

When this album came out, it was a double LP. It probably should have been condensed into one album. This release has some of the best sections of Oldfield music in existence, mostly contained in Parts 1 and 3. Many other parts of the album are, however, very repetitive and grate. The Song of Hiawatha poem in part 2 is quite nice but, once again, goes on too long. This CD is certainly worth picking up, if nothing else for the first and third parts. Even these are repetitive in places, however. This is nothing like the tightly constructed Platinum that followed it.

This may very well be my favorite Oldfield piece as well as one of my favorite minimalist works. I believe this album was Oldfield's first after Ommadawn and that it came nearly three years later. Those three years were well spent, beleive me! As good as Ommadawn is, I actually prefer Incantations for several reasons. The first and obvious reason is that it's longer than Ommadawn. I'd rather have 70 minutes of Mike's music that 40 minutes any day! Another reason is that Incantations sounds slightly less dated (and has a more enduring appeal for me) than Ommadawn. Ommadawn is a little too psychedelic at times for my preference and I sometimes get the feeling that he set out to accomplish slightly more with it than he actually did. I never get that feeling with Incantations. Also, Ommadawn lacks the sheer musical drama of Incantations. The first and fourth parts are particularly dramatic.

If you like Mike's long pieces (most of Mike's fans do!) and if you find minimalist works at all palatable, you will love Incantations. I noticed that some of the reviewers have pointed out that more than a minute is missing from the original release but, never having heard the original, I don't miss a thing. I would certainly have preferred to have purchased the work in its entirety, but it's so good even as it is that I really can't complain. This is a five star effort any way you slice it!

By the way, if you like minimalist compositions, check out Steve Reich's "The Four Sections."

This was the only Oldfield album I never listened to much on vinyl as I always preferred the wonderful live version on 'Exposed', so seeing it available newly remastered it seemed like a good time to become re-acquianted. I still it find less inspiring than the live version - particularly parts three and four - with too many weedy sounding keyboards and sparser instrumentation, especially during moments when the huge band on the live version would generate an awesome crescendo of sound. Having said that, it is still a very good, and often mesmerising, piece of music and happily the sound quality of the HDCD remasters is excellent and a huge improvement on previous CD's.

This is more than can be said for the shoddy packaging, though, which applies for all the remasters I have purchased. The covers are very poor quality - almost like colour photo-copies giving the appearance of a pirate bootleg - and the booklets are cheap and flimsy. The booklets come with specially written liner notes which are excrutiatingly banal and full of errors. For example, the notes repeatedly make reference to the inclusion of the track 'Guilty' which does not even appear on the album, and never has. On the album 'QE2' the writer claims that the title track takes up the whole of side one (it appears on side two and at only seven minutes long could never have taken up the whole side of any album).

If an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters could write the works of Shakespear then I reckon it would take half a dozen monkeys with a packet of crayons to write better sleeve notes than this. Surprisingly, the guy responsible was brave enough to put his name to this drivel.

Elsewhere, the tracklisting for the album 'Crises' completely omits one of the tracks and the small print for 'The Killing Fields' indicates that I am actually listening to 'Five Miles Out'. These examples (I'm sure there are many more) are not just small, petty errors, but whopping great errors than even a cursory proof reading could have avoided. The one redeeming feature is that if you collect all the new remasters a tubular bells image will appear on the spines, providing, of course, that you put them in the right order.

Kudos for the those responsible for the remastering then, but shame on Virgin for the awful packaging.

Incantations is a rare gem in Mike's output. Very diferent from the previous three symphonic-folk-rock masterpieces, but also isolated from the rest of his discography. Here the musician-composer-interpreter is more composer than ever, in a very academical way, close to such composers as Steve Reich, Phillip Glass or John Adams, althought his distinctive guitar can also be found here. If the previous Ommadawn was folky and romantic, Incantations is minimalistic and classical, without the dramatic emotional intensity of his predecessor and more inclined to an aseptic flowing of musical structures and melodies. Mike gets very close to Steve Reich here, specially for the sparse use of melodic percussion, flute and strings, and also in terms of compositional technics: the use of minimalistic cells which create the base and background of the music. The chord-arpeggios are also very used and refer more to Phillip Glass; so any doubt that this is a real minimalistic piece of music, long and repetitive, but with great oldfield-melodies and idiosyncratic guitar-playing. The only link with Ommadawn is a medieval influence in some parts, but of course in a very different context. The best parts for me are part one and four, with a special mention to the vibraphone passage on part four, in which he uses changing meters as 4/8, 6/8, 5/8. In my opinion Mike reached a top with this work in terms of compositional ability and musical ambition (73 minutes of music), so he changed completly of musical direction to more easy and commercial works; a real pity. The sound-atmosphere of the recording is clear and sophisticated in itself (in contraposition to the previous albums, more raw and rustic), so there's no need to say that the remastered CD dignifies the final listening tremendously. The only problem with the remasterd edition is the bad quality of the covers, as another reviewer has pointed out, it seems like a colour photo-copy! what kind of Art-work is this? I can do it better with my scanner and computer. Five stars for Mike Oldfield and Incantations. Four for the edition.

OK, here's the deal. Up until this point, much of Oldfield's work has been based off of the ideas he explored on "Tubular Bells": extended rock-based work, which elaborated on the ideas in something of a classically-inflected manner. On "Incantations", the tables get turned. This work is much more of a proper _classical_ piece (in fact, for all practical purposes, it follows 'proper' symphonic form!) which utilizes some rock (mainly instrumentation) elements. And musically, this work actually fits in more with works by composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, or John Adams; it's worth noting that Oldfield, on his next album, would even include a Philip Glass 'cover'. This is a tremendous jump forward from the previous three albums, although Oldfield does presage what he's doing here, to some extent, on "Ommadawn". My suggestion, therefore, would be to go and listen to "Tubular Bells" or "Ommadawn" first, make sure you're down with some of the work of the composers mentioned above, _then_ pick this one up...and what's up here should sink right in. All that aside, this is perhaps one of the best works of classical 'minimalism' (which is what it more or less belongs in), easily on-par with the work of other 'serious' composers, and which actually manages to extend the cellularly-based minimalist concept into lusher, more complex territory. John Adams would later get the kudos for doing this, but Oldfield was there some time before him with this work. IMHO, one of the great 'missing masterpieces' of this style of music...deserves a _lot_ more attention, but in its right context.

I have been a fan of Mike Oldfield for a long time, and I have had the CD version of Incantations for years. I bought this remastered version in part because the increase in quality in the remastered version of "Hergest Ridge" is remarkable. Well, sad to say, there is much less of an appreciable difference in Incantations. The CD recording was already very clean, and there isn't anymore detail in these new versions. But the worst problem, pure sacrilege, is the missing beat in the vibraphone section at 12:38 in part 4. As of today, 11/23/2011, this error is still in the files offered here on Amazon. It makes me want to get my money back. So, for now - please don't buy this. Don't get me wrong, this is probably my favorite Mike Oldfield piece. But messing up the mastering is inexcusable. Get the old CD - with Oldfield on a beach on the cover - and rip it yourself.

Buyer beware! This fourth installment from Mike Oldfield's reissue series has left this listener in complete dismay. This is a complete botchery and an absolute slap in the face to avid surround sound listeners like myself.

I was extremely excited to get a hold of a surround sound mix of Incantations, which really is my favorite Oldfield record. However, the surround mixes, while fantastic, are mere excerpts of the entire piece, and include a bunch of other folky music that is not even included on the original album.

I ask Universal UK and Mike Oldfield, why even release a surround mix if you can't provide the entire recording? Why does the Main Menu say "Play Incantations", when infact it should say "Play Excerpts of Incantations and Other Tracks You Never Expected to Hear." I was happy with my two LP set, and this is a clear downgrade.

For those interested - here is what you get on the DVD.
. Diana
Northumbrian
Piano Improvisation
Hiawatha
Canon For Two Vibraphones
Guilty

Also, three videos which include a live version of Incantations.

Amazon needs to update their "review" which clearly mis-represents what comes on this Deluxe release.

Compared to the wonderful Deluxe versions of Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn, the Deluxe release of Incantations falls considerably short. Completely aside from the part four glitch, which has been promptly addressed by the record company and replacements will be sent when available, my disappointment is focused on the 5.1 dvd release. I was hoping and expecting the entire piece was going to be released in 5.1, and instead, all we are given are snippets. They all sound nice, but they are not the entire work. The new stereo versions sound fine, but they do not interest me as much as a surround version. Why release surround versions of the first three, but not this piece? To be clear, I enjoy everything presented here, but the release is incomplete without a 5.1 version of the entire recording, and as such, hardly qualifies as Deluxe.