Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Jul 31

Album #90 – Artificial Paradise – Sylvan

by stegzy

Sylvan_-_Artificial_ParadiseArtificial Paradise – Sylvan

No idea where I got this album from. They sound like a cross between Knucklecock Nickleback and Scream Silence but not as offensive to the ears as you might think.

Sylvan are a German Progressive rock band. People that know me know I like prog. I am a semi-self styled “expert” on the genre. Which, if you know what the word “expert” means you’ll know that means I know absolutely nothing about the subject really.

As with all good prog rockers, Artificial Paradise is a concept album covering concepts such as the greed, deceitfulness and superficiality of society.

Another artist that grows on you like a fungal infection. But unfortunately they have all the stage presence of a group of roadies doing a soundcheck.

sylvan

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Jul 30

Album #89 – Artificial Heart – Jonathan Coulton

by stegzy

220px-Artificialheart-loresArtificial Heart – Jonathan Coulton

All the cool kids know Jonathan Coulton. If you know Jonathan Coulton, you’re cool. You’re hip. You need to wear a beret, smoke Lucky Strike, grow a soul patch and look aloof immediately.  Of course, I’m not a hipster. That makes me cooler than hipsters. Especially as I don’t think Coulton is all that special. So what do I know?

Artificial Heart is an ideal starting place for introductions to Coulton’s clever lyrics and interesting music. Of course, you, like me, may have already stumbled across Coulton after completing Portal. Unfortunately, perhaps because of my lack of American heritage, I think there are a lot of higher quality song writers out there with much snappier and clever lyrics doing a much better job than Coulton. Half Man Half Biscuit, Jay Foreman, Amanda Palmer and Jason Webbley come to mind. But that is not to say I dislike his work. There are some good songs and observations in his works, but there needs to be some consistency.

Of course, as I said, I’m not a hipster (which automatically makes me cooler than any hipster ever) so what do I know?

Johnathan Coulton

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Jul 29

Album #88 – Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire) – The Kinks

by stegzy

Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire) – The Kinks

Ray Davies. What a guy. One of the few people in music that can actually craft an album that has a flavour and sentiment of Britishness. If music is the world, The Kinks are the British Empire in all respects, with the Beatles being notaries in the background.

Arthur  is a concept album originally created as a soundtrack for a television programme that was never made. But who needs visualisations, apart from the youth of today? When the mind is the most creative and cheap television screen available! If it’s gritty quirk British drama you want, chuck this album on your media player of choice, whack on your ridiculous Beats by Dr Dre, close your eyes and, by listening the the lyrics, begin a imaginary feast of Britishness. It’s not until Return to Waterloo that you get anywhere close to anything like this.

Kinks (The)

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Jul 28

Album #87 – The Art of Being a Girl – Julee Cruise

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-23 at 15.20.32 The Art of Being a Girl – Julee Cruise

You’ll probably remember Julee Cruise as the creepy singer from Twin Peaks. The one who sang at the Roadhouse and made an appearance in Fire Walk With Me. Cruise had, until this album, mostly worked with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch resulting in spooky haunting tunes with weird overtones. Arguably you could say that Cruise started the whole New Weird America genre or even the etherical genre which will feature heavily in this project.

So it is as no surprise that I have this album. I was transfixed by Cruise during most of the 90’s.  A time of my life where I was willing weirdness to come into my life and make it less mundane. It didn’t. I wasn’t visited by creepy women with logs or giant owls or mothmen. Instead I met aging hippies, hairy goths and floaty vagina women who wove yogurt.

This album comes several years after Cruise’s work with Lynch and Badalamenti and shows that her talents in singing are not lost, however without the creepy Lynch/Badalamenti music, it just doesn’t quite light your rocket. There’s an interesting remix of Falling on this album but it’s not the haunting original. It’s kind of like a cyber reimagining of the song by someone who hasn’t heard the original in its context.

Julee Cruise

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Jul 27

Album #86 – Arrival – Abba

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-23 at 15.22.30 Arrival – ABBA

Oh dear.

I grew up on a force fed diet of  ABBA to such an extent they are part of my genetics. Every song I hear is immediately recognised as ABBA, in fact, I often go as far to say that ABBA was more influential than the Beatles. Yes. That’s right. I said it. Me a scouser. ABBA are more influential on culture than the Beatles will ever be and they remain so.

Arrival was ABBA’s fourth studio album and was released in 1976. Cheesey cheery pop with often sinister lyrics. When I Kissed the Teacher is clearly unPC these days, Dancing Queen is also very suspicious when listened with modern ears and as for Money Money Money…well that’s just wrong on so many levels.

Arrival clearly makes the happy cheery smiley face of cheesey pop grin that little bit wider. However, when you look deep into the eyes of the beast, you notice pain, emotional earthquakes and  sinister sexual overtones. Moreover, on closer inspection you will cringe everytime Auntie Beryl sings away to Dancing Queen at the family disco.

Not a bad album once you see past the ribbons and fluff.

Abba

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Jul 26

Are you Experienced – Jimi Hendrix [#85]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-23 at 15.22.24 Are you Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix

I am experienced. I am experienced in listening to music.

Short of jumping into your TARDIS and travelling back to Woodstock, you’re unlikely to see Jimi Hendrix perform in these parts. Though if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably end up in Woodstock in Oxfordshire.

Oh how we laugh.

Anyway, this is Jimi’s debut album. Had you been about in the 60’s you’d probably be listening to it on your portable gramophone while older stuffy types look on disapprovingly. It’s got all the overplayed Hendrix songs, Foxy Lady, Are you Experienced and Hey Joe and runs into about an hours worth of playtime.

Personally, with my futuristic ears (they have their own jet pack), I can’t hear what the fuss was all about. It’s some bloke with a guitar. Unremarkable. Run of the mill. Nothing exciting. Nor stimulating.

I suppose back in the time it was ground breaking but probably only because it was harder to get yourself heard in those pre-internet days. Modest musicians would probably say that their skills on guitar are nowhere near as good as Hendrix. But that’s like Mozart saying William Byrd was the better composer.

1967 Jimi Hendrix

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Jul 25

Album #84 – Arcana – Edenbridge

by stegzy

Edenbridge - Arcana (Front)Arcana – Edenbridge

Guess what?

More tight leather trousered European women with dark flowing hair singing along to twiddly keyboards and chuggachugga guitar riffs. Brilliant.

Austria’s Edenbridge were the last of my big boobed metal band discoveries. On the basis that Shine was quite enjoyable, I sourced the entire Edenbridge back catalogue and now wish I had better taste in music. Sabine Edelsbacher melodically shrieks fairy tale lyrics to boyfriend Lanvall’s speed metal guitar twiddling and Roland Navratil’s RSI inducing drum beats.

I quite like this album. It sneaks up on you like a bad cold in June. I’ve almost deleted it a number of times but I keep fetching it back out from the recycle bin so I must like it.

Nothing really of note memory wise to tell about this album. It’s typical Edenbridge fayre on the back of the metal bands lead by women movement of the noughties.

 

Edenbridge

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Jul 24

Album #83 – Aqualung – Jethro Tull

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 16.39.39Aqualung – Jethro Tull

Sitting on a park bench listening to Aqualung reminds me about history lessons at school.  Read the rest of this entry »

Jethro Tull

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Jul 23

Album #82 – Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 16.28.45 Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno

Ah coffee table albums. Bit like coffee table books. The kind of music brought out at middle class dinner parties to wow and seem hip and in touch with culture.

It’s mostly bollocks.

Like me ,you’ve probably got several coffee table albums in your own personal collections. Such as David Grey, Buena Vista Social Club, War of the Worlds and anything by Adele. Brian Eno is the reigning emperor of coffee table music.

This album consists of music and soundscapes that wouldn’t be out of place in a chapel of eternal rest or that place they send off Edward G Robinson in Soylent Green. 

Not for me. It’s a little too hip for my liking and pigeon holes the listener into the 30+ bracket. Kind of like how your grandparents were probably listening to James Last around the gramophone.

Tired overplayed coffee table tosh.

 

Brian Eno

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Jul 22

Aphelia – Scream Silence [#81]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 15.19.19 Aphelia – Scream Silence

German in origin, Scream Silence is another one of those bands that don’t seem to be well known in the UK. Can’t think why. They’re great.

Apart from the sometimes comical pronunciation of English, Scream Silence are just what you want from a post-Nickleback musicscape. With shades of Breaking Benjamin and European rockers Sonata Arctica, Scream Silence are an angry man’s musician of choice. Occasional death growls and loads of chugga-chugga, they have made some good albums.

This is not my favourite Scream Silence album, that honour going to Savourine. Aphelia, Scream Silence’s sixth release, is a good second base and recommended to those not wanting Rammstein’s German lyrics.

2007 Scream Silence

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Jul 21

Album #80 – Apartment Life – Ivy

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 14.43.39Apartment Life – Ivy

New Yorker lounge core artists smooth their way into your ears with strained yogurt tones and creamy caramel vocals. Ivy are like aurally sucking on a really strong mint with a eucalyptus coating while sexy ladies blow cold air into your ear.

I was introduced to Ivy by Last.fm who frequently made them pop up on my Last.fm recommended radio station. And it’s a good job because I really like them.

Another one of those bands that, in days before internet, would have been difficult to obtain in the UK.  However, a good deal of Ibizan DJs have mixed Ivy’s stuff into their own dreamy summer flavoured lounge mixes, which is probably because Ivy do a really good job of making you feel that it is summer.

A fairly good album for a first, but not my first taste of Ivy (that was Long Distance). I often wish somebody would ask me to travel to the USA to be part of a band or copy writing group like they did with the lead singer of Ivy.

Delicious.

Ivy

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Jul 20

Album #79 – Anywhere But Home – Evanescence

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 14.25.55

Anywhere But Home – Evanescence

Sometime in the noughties, big record companies identified a popular and growing genre with the young and spendy. It was taking Europe by storm. Metal and rock bands fronted by a female singer with dark hair and huge norks.

It was growing like a fungus on the toe of American and British youth culture but not as fast as it was in Europe. So when they found the American band Evanescence, they were everywhere. Soundtracks such as Daredevil and Elektra and numerous TV show links seemed to require a healthy dose of their music.

I only like three of their songs. To be fair, I find them a bit plastic and over-produced. This album features those three songs in a live setting with lots of screaming fans. Albums like that show how popular bands can become. Sadly, I can’t put up with their other stuff…

 

Evanescence

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Jul 19

Album #78 – Anthology Archive – Revue Noir

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 14.05.53 Anthology Archive – Revue Noir

This is another one of those music projects by bands I like but didn’t know they’d done.

Revue Noir is a collaboration between Sam Rosenthal and Nicki Jaine both former Black Tape for a Blue Girl.The Noir is rightly placed as this is as dark as 10 Neurotics. The album covers several familiar songs from a variety of artists such as David Bowie and The Doors taking them to a very dark place indeed.

Think Dresden Dolls, with the lights out, in a mine, painted black. With your eyes closed. Or maybe imagine a dark burlesque evening where everyone there is hedonistically miserable and the stage act sounds like they’re about to break into some weird real life S&M.

That’s Revue Noir. Dark and sinister.

Another hipster album I think. For those wanting to sound enchanting, hip and dark or fans of the sexually charged Dark Cabaret revival of the noughties.

I couldn’t find a video of anything from this album other than this one which, curiously, was filmed at a burlesque evening.

Black Tape for a Blue Girl Brian Viglione Revue Noir

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Jul 18

Album #77 – Another Kind of Love – Joe Bonamassa

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 13.51.45Another Kind of Love – Joe Bonamassa

I have a friend who is a guitarist. Jim is a very good guitarist. Jim knows how to play his guitar with feeling and passion. Much like Joe Bonamassa. Joe Bonamassa, unfortunately, is not my friend. If he was, I could imagine him and Jim doing something together. With lots of hair.

My first introduction to Bonamassa was a live cover of New Day Yesterday and this was the only album I was able to obtain before I lost the use of fast internet (I now live where a broad band is a group of potbellied musicians).

Blues rock guitar with plenty of chugga-chugga. Nice for one of those days when you’re working on an engine in your garage or doing some other manly thing wearing denim and cheese cloth shirts. Possibly in the blazing New Mexico heat while smoking roll ups and wearing a bandanna.

Another one of those musicians that lots of people have heard about but neglected to tell me.

Joe Bonamassa

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Jul 17

Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse [Album #76]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 13.11.55Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse

Until the last decade I had shamefully only heard of Faith and the Muse in rumours and student bedroom wall posters. Faith and the Muse have a similar style to Ordo Equitum Solis. Much like OES, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, Faith and the Muse are popular amongst the dark clothe wearing goth fraternity. Dark in style with mediaeval tones, Faith and the Muse mix open atmospheric chords with wailing floaty dressed female vocals and, in some tracks, militaristic drumming.

I had only listened to Annwyn once before. I’m not sure I would choose them for a car mix tape or to accompany a dinner party. Unless I was trying to be some sort of hipster goth or impress some Twiglet (sic) obsessed teenagers on their first forays into the dark.

I don’t know why I find this kind of music enjoyable. Perhaps it is the mental images of  dark and wet rainy streets that it conjures. In all, if your folk is too cheery, this is what you want. In a room. With joss sticks and pentagrams.

 

1994 Faith and the Muse

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Jul 16

Album #75 – Animi Aegritudo – Ordo Equitum Solis

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 12.40.53Animi Aegritudo – Ordo Equitum Solis

Neo-folk? Goth? Both? Not entirely sure.

There seems to be a lot of dark wave European bands with latin names. Ordo Equitum Solis, or Empire of the Sun are one such example . OES have a similar sound to Dead Can Dance only without the wailing Lisa Gerrard or weird avante-gard revivalist instruments. There are no sackbuts or crumbhorns here.

Animi Aegritudo (or Mind Illness) gives you that haunting mediaeval feeling, like you should be in some sort of red candle lit cellar in Italy, just before red cassocked hooded monks come into the room and sacrifice you to some dark entity.

I really like them (OES that is, not weird demon summoning monks).  I could quite happily sit in a cellar somewhere and listen to their haunting songs while supping red wine from golden jewel encrusted goblets. Of course most of their stuff was released a long time ago although they have recently had a bit of a come back.

I was really lucky to discover OES whilst on a Usenet music harvesting excersise in the early noughties. Of course, at the time, none of their stuff was available to buy legitimately in the UK. Sure you could buy imports but the last time I did that I ended up with a large credit card bill for porn and internal flights in the USA, which, of course, I have no recollection of buying. Anyway, you can buy their stuff now through Amazon and CDBaby if you’re really interested. I suggest giving them ago. They grow on you . Like moss. On a red candle lit cellar wall.

 

 

 

Ordo Equitum Solis

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Jul 15

Album #74 – Animals – Pink Floyd

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 12.26.00Animals – Pink Floyd

The first time I heard this album back in 1991 I was told “You’ll not find this in HMV”. Curiously I did.

This is one of those defining life moment CDs. The ones where every track initialises memories of times past, people long gone and places you’ve not been to in a very long time.

As an introduction to Pink Floyd, Animals was a good place to begin. Political and observational lyrics define this as a Roger Waters masterpiece, a far flung difference to the earlier psychedelic shenanigans of Syd Barratt’s Floyd. It’s by no means the first but it’s one of the best. Clearly a pre-The Wall album and most definately Pink Floyd.

Listen especially to the Dr Whoesque Radiophonic Workshop like track Sheep.

I love this album. It is life affirming in a negative way. Shattering the illusions of the nuclear-age and dancing upon the tattered remains of the pre-Thatcherite British society. Dark, scathing and very well observed. Perfect.

ADDENDUM: I alsohave a “Limited Edition” Trance remix version of this album. It’s shocking. You’d have to be in a trance to like it.

1977 Pink Floyd

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Jul 14

Angels Fall First – Nightwish [#73]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-09 at 17.02.48 Angels Fall First – Nightwish

Long ago, deep deep in the forests of the snow bound lands of the bearded Vikings men gathered and sang of the faerie folk and mystical things too mystical for our closed modern minds to comprehend.

Spin forward several centuries and they’re at it again, complete with huge chested Valkyries, heavy metal guitars and lots of chugga-chugga riffs.

This album was my first experience of Nightwish. With it came a desire to visit Finland and see the forests and voluptuous valkyries while drinking salmiakki and growing a beard. The music had the added bonus of “This is shit get it off” chants from the wife. Of course, I didn’t, I just lapped it up in Lapland, sought out other similar artists and probably damaged my credibility as a music lover along the way.

But I don’t care. I was into Nightwish before metal hipsters. That makes me cool.

 

1997 Nightwish

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Jul 13

Album #72 = Angel’s Egg – Gong

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-06 at 19.51.48Angel’s Egg – Gong (1973)

Take one impressionable teenager. Play them The Flying Teapot Radio Gnome Part 1. Sit back and wait.

I bought this in on CD in 1990 after having my mind blown by The Flying Teapot. Gong are kind of like Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band meets King Crimson. Jazz, with bizarre fantasy world inspired lyrics and a hell of a lot of jazz influence.

Several years later I was at Sheffield Hallam University and Gong were playing at the Nelson Mandela building (now demolished). Of course I was too shy to go and see them by myself and regret that I never had the balls to do so. I would probably have given up on them there and then.

French band, Gong’s second Radio Gnome but fifth album tells the story of Zero, the hero, and his continuing exploits on the planet Gong with the Pot Head Pixies. Yes, you guessed it, this album is heavily drug inspired. Perfect for your spotty teenager in the early to mid nineties at a time of naive mysticism and pre-millennial optimism. Great stuff, if only for a song about vaginas.

1973 Gong Virgin

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Jul 12

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe – Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe [#71]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-06 at 19.10.20Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH)

ABWH by ABWH is an album that slots in between Big Generator and Union in the pantheon of Yes albums. Oh, yes, you probably won’t be aware of what happened.

As frequently happens with Yes, there are often little tiffs between members, some members want to do something one style, while the others throw their toys out the pram and say they want to do it a different way.

Case in point. Listen to any Yes album pre-90125. The style is different. You can hear how the style has evolved sure, but it’s definitely a different paradigm shift is styles. The younger, cooler, less hippy members of the band went “We want to do an album like this” while the pye eyed hippy lot went “No but we want to do one as well”

Unfortunately you can’t have two bands with the same name formed of members, old and new. No. It just won’t do (Are you reading this Renaissance, Deep Purple etc?)

So what you do in a situation like that? When your older band mates come along and say “Hey, lets make an album?” Well you make an album. Of course the existing member of Yes at the time (White, Squire, Kaye and Rabin) went “Oi! No! Not as Yes you don’t” and so began a long battle for the rights to use the band name Yes.

In the meanwhile, ABWH produced an album and this is that album. Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick “Grumpy” Wakeman and Bill “I’ve met Stegzy Gnomepants” Bruford. It’s full of Anderson mystique, Howe and Wakeman twiddly and Bruford boshbishbashing. It’s a show off album. It says “Listen to us! We’re old but we can still do stuff”. Yeah.

It’s ok.

It’s not great.

It’s ok.

Its definitely of the time, late eighties, early nineties. You can tell from the tribal and African influences. To me it’s too twee for the time. It’s certainly an album of talent, but it’s like 10 years too late. The style is very Peter Gabriel and you can tell Squire isn’t about because the bass just isn’t as fiddly.

Spin forward a few years, the band reconciled their differences and recorded Union. Another pile of tosh. More of that later.

 

1989 Yes

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Jul 11

Album #70 = And She closed Her Eyes – Stina Nordenstam

by stegzy

STINAAnd She Closed Her Eyes – Stina Nordenstam

Odd.

This is, apparently, a genre called New Weird America. Or so I’m told. By hipsters.

I am officially cool. I’m okay with this album. I don’t like it. I don’t hate it. I’m okay with it. That, and looking aloof, makes me cool.

However, because I don’t wear stupid hats, half mast trousers or half of a scrap metal yard in my ear, ironically, I’m not a hipster. Nor would I want to be.

The soft mellow jazzesque notes, bizarre child like and haunting tones of Ms Nordenstam and the simple repetitive melodies  make this like a soft tickly aural touch to your ears, similar to a light soft feathery touch you might have on your skin during some semi-somnambulistic sexiness.

One step away from a soul patch and a beret. Not too bad.

 

Stina Nordenstam

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Jul 10

Album #69 – Anastasis – Dead Can Dance

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-06 at 16.55.31 Anastasis – Dead Can Dance

We, so Brendan Perry sings, are the children of the sun in the first track on this long awaited album. Anastasis comes 16 years after the last DCD album, Spirit Chaser.  With majestic tones abound, this is typical DCD fodder.

Had I continued the Music Project last year, this album would not have featured, because, despite the embargo on new music until the project has finished, I couldn’t resist when it was on offer on Amazon. I treated myself during the hiatus.

I really like this album. If I was still 23 and living in my crumby bedsit playing computer games all day long, I’d more than likely have played it over and over again had it been released then of course.

Theres something about DCD. Something naughty. I don’t mean boobies naughty. I mean…hooded monk/candles/pentagrams naughty. To me it’s like I’m invoking long forgotten entities from some dark sexy place populated by leather catsuit clad comedy inflatable breasted succubi doing dances like that silhouetted woman on the opening titles of Tales from the Unexpected.

Probably why I like it.

 

 

Dead Can Dance

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Jul 9

Album #68 – Amused to Death – Roger Waters

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 15.06.11 Amused to Death – Roger Waters

I don’t know what it is about pissed off rock musicians. They whinge and moan about society and how hard it is and how corrupt and awful people in power are. Then they jump on their yacht and sail off into the sunset to their mansion in Cuba or somewhere.

Being a bit of a Floyd fan I was recommended Amused to Death by my hippy friend Blair who always had a good music recommendation that would tickle the old conspiracy tentacles.

Waters moans about the influence of media and television on society and war.Saw him live once though. Think the smile on his face at the end of the concert said the most. It was a kind of “Thanks for your money suckers!” look.

Maybe I miss the point. Media only has the power it has over people because we let it. These days, with the power of media in our own hands, we perversely continue to suckle on the teats of our media mummies rather than actually getting out and making our own media. Like writing a blog. Or making a film. Or singing our own songs. None of which will necessarily make you a living unless you’re really good at it, have the right face and you know the right people.

If you like being angry and helpless to do anything, this is the album for you. If you don’t like being angry, do something about it.

1992 Pink Floyd Roger Waters

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Jul 8

Album #67 – Among My Swan – Mazzy Star

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 14.54.23 Among My Swan – Mazzy Star

At school I was known as Mazzy S by some of my colleagues. Never really asked why. I just accepted it and moved on.

One day someone said “Ah Mazzy S, like Mazzy Star”. I queried them and they explained that Mazzy Star was a band. I asked if they were progressive rock and got told that they weren’t. So there ended my interest in them.

Spin forward a few years and Mrs-Soon-to-Be-Ex-Gnomepants mentioned that she liked a few songs by Mazzy Star. So here was my chance to find out what they were like.

Imagine being really depressed. At that depressed level where you are sat in a bar on your own staring at your shoes and wishing the world was a nicer place. Then imagine the bar owner getting really upset at you not buying any drinks and to get out of the place as he doesn’t open for another five hours or so.

Well Mazzy Star is like that.

Cold. Uncaring and shoegazery. I am not a hipster.

Mazzy Star

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Jul 7

Album #66 – Amarok – Mike Oldfield

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 13.56.10Amarok – Mike Oldfield

Oldfield presents a miasma of sound harking back to the wild days of Ommadawn in this release from 1990.

I remember asking Steph Ormsby to nip to HMV for me to get this on cassette because I was stuck in school and I simply had to have it.  Bless her, she did and I’m eternally grateful to her for doing so.

Without Amarok, the next 2 years would have been difficult expression wise. I could hear how Oldfield had vented frustrations against Branson and Virgin while at the same time marvelling at his musical prowess and wishing I was just as talented.

Of course, I’m not.

Presented as a single sixty minute track, something that was lost by listening to it on cassette, Amarok is a true experiment in your own understanding of musical form. I especially like how the ending just keeps building up and up. Theoretically, you could listen to it on loop for a whole day.  I do, however,  recommend that you listen to it when feeling a bit…eclectic.

These guys did a good job of performing it too:

1990 Mike Oldfield

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