The Songs of Distant Earth (album)
Occupation
Mike Oldfield (various instruments)
The Songs of Distant Earth is a studio album by the British artist Mike Oldfield from the year 1994.
Formation
The music album was inspired by the novel (English: The song of distant earth) by Arthur C. Clarke ( Oldfield's favorite book ) and especially by the end of this novel, which culminates in a music concert, which wanted to compose Oldfield. In return, the author wrote, was very taken with the idea and eventually the album, a preface, which can be found in the CD booklet. His comment: "I Feel He Has lived up to my expectations " ( " I feel that he has become my expectations "). Around the same time, Oldfield also dealt with the possibilities offered by computer games. Therefore, the articles distributed in the UK version of the CD album The Songs of Distant Earth by a CD -ROM is included, with which you can explore some of the more notable places of the book in an interactive game - including the " Hibernaculum " of Magellan. In the game and the video clip for the decoupled single from the album Let There Be Light is included. The design of the album draws on stills from the CD- ROM.
Title list
Meaning of the songs
When listening to the album, as it would consist of two long pieces acts; however, it is divided into 17 tracks, In the Beginning contains the live recording of William Anders, aboard the Apollo 8 during an orbit of the moon reads the first lines of Genesis the first book of Moses in the Old Testament of the Bible 1968 ( ' in the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth ') and merges into Let There Be Light. To this end, Oldfield turned in at the time of the latest computer technology video. Oceania depends thematically very closely with Only Time Will Tell, which contains a self-hypnosis sequence of Mike Joseph. Prayer for the Earth is a so-called ' Saami Chant ' and divides the album into two halves. The Chamber is like a preface to Hibernaculum, which was also coupled. Tubular World takes the world famous Tubular Bells theme in heavily modified form again. A New Beginning is sung by a Tubuai Choir.
Contributors
- Gregg Jackman - of assistive engineer
- Tom Newman - of assistive engineer
- Richard Barrie - Technical Engineer
- Eric Cadieux - Additional programming
- Mark Rutherford - Additional loops and programming
- Sugar ' J' - Additional loops
- Pandit Dinesh - tabla
- Molly Oldfield - keyboards
- Cori Josias - Singer
- Ella Harper - Singer
- Nils- Aslak Valkeapää - Singer & Composer
- David Nickless - Singer
- Roame - Singer
- Members of Veulam Consort - Singer
- The Tallis Scholars - Singer
- Vahine Taihara - Tubuai Choir
- Apollo 8 astronaut William Alison Anders reads from the Book of Genesis during Christmas Eve 1968 the Moon orbits.
Charts
UK # 24, D # 33, R # 20, CH # 23, NL # 81, S # 12
Others
On the single of " Hibernaculum " is the title of "The Song of the Boat Men ", which is not included on " The Songs of Distant Earth ". Part of the melody which will be taken up as a refrain in " Moonshine " on Oldfields album Man on the Rocks (2014).
Criticism
The Songs of Distant Earth surprised in 1994 as a very harmonious, coherent body of Chill Out album, which paved the way for similar works such Tr3s Lunas and Light Shade, or even the following album Voyager, which was, however, played with traditional instruments.