Tales from Topographic Incantations

In the afternoon : Tales

In the evening : Incantations

Cactus Choir wrote:

Tales by a considerable distance. Two sides (The Revealing Science of God and The Remembering) are excellent and some of the best music Yes ever made. Having really loved the first three Mike Oldfield albums, I found Incantations a big disappointment. It's a long time since I listened to it, but large parts seemed to be based around one unimaginative scale, the guitar work was less stellar and there were far fewer interesting musical ideas than on albums such as Tubular Bells and Ommadawn. He was having exegesis treatment at the time he made Incantations and this apparently improved his mental state (cut his hair, became less depressed and more extroverted) but it also seemed to cure him of some of his talent and creativity!

sometimes less is more

. I have to admit I prefer Platinum over Tubular Bells so I'm not convinced about the 'cured him of his talent' comment albeit tongue in cheek I'm sure.

Oldfield has had a magnificent career ( 'had' as Man On The Rocks is very poor in my estimation). His later albums are actually very good especially Guitars and Voyager and he explored some interesting areas mid period such Killing Fields and Amarok.

Topographic Oceans is okay but compared to Close To The Edge its a bit of a snooze fest imo. The first track just seems to be stuck in neutral most of the time and this is especially annoying after such a brilliant intro. Incantations explores the beauty of repetition which in any other hands would have been dull. How do you make Philip Glass interesting? Let Oldfield loose on it.

Incantations has some great stuff but IMHO it could have been reduced to a single album, or to 1,5 album.

TFTO has 4 great sides and I like the album as it is.

Tales gets my vote.

Both took me a couple listens to fully appreciate."The revealing science" is the best track of these two albums, but "Incantations" as a whole is much better.

Tales. Incantations is still a mystery to me.

^^^ i agree regarded Incantations.

And voted Tales.

Green Shield Stamp wrote:

Tales is a great album - especially the first two sides. Incantations is too long-winded and repetitive for me.

Hmmm....both albums are too long winded, repetitive,..... and boring.

One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin

Poll Question: Which album do you prefer?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes	38	[67.86%]
Incantations by Mike Oldfield	18	[32.14%]
This topic is closed, no new votes accepted

Mike Oldfield, Incantations.