Track by Track
Warner Music Spain S.A. veröffentlichte zu dem Album eine
Erklärung von Mike Oldfield, in der man lesen kann, welche Bedeutung die
Songs für Mike haben.
Leider habe ich niemanden für die Übersetzung gewinnen
können. Daher ist der Text wie im Original in Englisch.
1.- Misty
“Misty is the name of one of my horses. I used to have much
free time and I thought it would be interesting to have a hobby. I´ve always
been attracted to this idea of having beautiful animals around me. Misty is
an Arabian young mare. I bought her when she was four months old and now she
is one year old. We have even celebrated his birthday party. She got a
carrot cake with one candle. I like to give them treats. I love it.
“Misty” was the first song where I tried a new musical technique, something
I have used in some tracks of the album. I call this technique
“saxophone-guitar sound”, and it is a kind of a new instrument. I love
playing guitar, and guitar technique helps me- using keyboards and a very
complex software- get the sound of a very unique virtual saxophone, mixed
with guitar chords.
2.- No Mans Land
“I love the desert. I have traveled very often throughout
the desert, when I was living in California and also when I visited Morocco
or Mexico. I like that isolation feeling, that sensation of being far away
from everything made by men. I love that vastness. It is a very special
feeling, but also a formal expression. “No Mans Land” is an expression used
mostly in the United States to describe a deserted land. In the MusicVR Game,
this desert delimites two different areas, each of them proposing the player
multiple options .
3.- Return To The Origin
“It is one of the leitmotifs in both the album and the
interactive game.The “origin” is the central point of the tri-dimensional
world of MusicVR. As my sister Sally´s voice suggests, sometimes you have to
return to that point, to return to the origin, and this way you complete the
different phases of the game.
For me this reflects too that need to return to our condition of human
beings, something like an spiritual return to what we really are, to our
center, something I use to do by practising meditation and Tai Chi.
Sometimes you have to forget the material aspects of life, because these
material aspects may cause stress or unhappiness. We have to return to our
own origin, or at least we should try to do it as often as possible.
4.- Landfall
“ This is definitely an ambient track. The music describes
that moment in the interactive game when you are able to leave the desert
and you have collected enough rings to go to a tiny island lying in the
middle of one of the game´s seas. “Landfall” was an expression used by
sailors such as Christopher Columbus when they arrived at land after a long
sea journey.
5.- Viper
“This was the first track in the album that made me feel
really satisfied. It´s quite rhythmic, it has that chill out flavour I
wanted for my album. This song is also one ot the three snakes in the game.
This one is a viper. There were sneakes too in “Tubular Bells III”. Maybe it
is one of my personal obsessions, because, according to Chinese horoscope, I
am a sneake too.
6.- Turtle Island
“This track is undoubtedly connected to Ibiza and to Café
del Mar. It has a very simple and catchy tune. This is the best music I can
imagine to hear while you sit down at a bar, you have a drink and you simply
enjoy life, in a relaxed way. This song has also its specific moment in the
game. When you arrive to the island you can see a turtle. When you are near
the turtle, you hear this song, “Turtle Island ”, and lots of tiny turtles
appear and you start playing with pearls and oysters emerging around you. If
you put three of this pearls into the turtle´s shell, you are allowed to
swim with the dolphins. Everything in this project is inter-connected.
7.- To Be Free
“This started as a simple acoustic guitar theme. Later I
decided to improve the rhythm and I added some drum loops. When we arrived
to this point, we decided to include vocals, so I hired a session vocalist
and I wrote the lyrics two hours before her arrival to the studio. We were
lucky and everything was easy and quick. We realized that the sound was
excellent and suddenly we decided that this song could be the first single.
When I had to write the lyrics, I thought about my children. I have three
teenage children who are now trying to decide what to do with their lives. I
know many people, people of different ages, who are living the same
situation. In my opinion, “To Be Free” is a hope chant for those who have
problems in their lives. The song talks about those moments when things
change in the most sudden way. We have made different remix versions by
Pumpin’ Dolls or Soultronik, ranging from House to Chill Out”.
8.- Firefly
“ This song is musically unique. It is a very visual song,
you can nearly see the fireflies around you. Luminous is the best word to
describe it. I composed it with humble guitar chords, but playing the guitar
in a very special way, as if I was caressing the strings.
I always dreamed of a song sounding like this, and now I had the opportunity
to do it. I used a similar technique in “Tubular Bells”, but now it has a
more defined sound, placed in the foreground.
These fireflies have a very important role in the game. They emerge from
caves and volcanos, and help you find your way out to other areas of the
MusicVR Game”.
9.- Tres Lunas
“This is obviously the central track in the album. When I
have to explane why did I choose this title, I have to remember the time
when I was living in Ibiza. There is an excellent restaurant there. People
call it Las Dos Lunas. It is between San Antonio and Ibiza city. The
restaurant´s owner lent me a compilation album we used to listen to very
often those days. It was full of very simple and relaxing guitar sounds, and
I could recognize samplings of some of my own tracks. And I decided then to
record a Chill Out album. I had to re-work it five or six times before I was
completely satisfied. The key was to make it as simple as possible. The
album´s visual appearance is very impressive. I wanted to transmit that
feeling of someone who is living in a strange planet and suddenly finds
three moons in the middle of the sky, instead of one.
10.- Daydream
“Obviously, this song has an evocative feeling. This song
was inspired by a long weekend I enjoyed in Venice, two years ago. While I
was there, I visited Burano island, and I found there a a very special
cemetery, unforgettable, with an odd but quiet environment. I found there
Igor Stravinski´s and Sergei Diaguilev´s tombs (Diaguilev was Stravinski´s
choreographer). There was a very special atmosphere, and it impressed me
somehow. I have always been attracted to the artistic movements emerging at
the end of the nineteenth century and at the beggining of the twentieth
century. I adore Surrealism and Salvador Dalí´s works, for example.
“Daydream” was also inspired by “Gymnopèdies” a delightful musical piece by
Erik Satie.
11.- Thou Art In Heaven
“This song has a long story. I got the central idea when I
received the commitment to compose the music for the Millenium Concert in
Berlin, something that finally become my penultimate album, “The Millennium
Bell”, specially conceived to welcome the new millenium. It was not possible
to develop that idea in that moment, but now it is ideal for this chill out
project.
The title, “Thou Art In Heaven” is inspired by the first verse of the Lord´s
Prayer.
12.- Sirius
”This track talks about a star called Sirius, that has
always kept me fascinated. It is a very big star, brilliant, perfect for
“Tres Lunas”. Sirius is the name of one of my horses too. I helped his
mother deliver him. He is also an Arabian horse, like Misty.
13.- No Mans Land (Reprise)
“It is a special way to finish the album. It is a kind of a
virtual duet between a guitar and a saxophone,a real Spanish guitar mixed
with a virtual saxophone sound, coming from synthesized keyboards played as
if they were guitar strings. There is something magical in this song.
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