Incantado

A remastered edition of Mike Oldfield's Incantations album is re-released this week, complete with some unreleased material and brand spanking new stereo remixing, new cover art and stuff. The best format would seem to tbe the 'de-luxe' edition with 2 CDs and a DVD with 5.1 remasters and some video material too. Details here at the official shop

I've always really liked Incantations since it came out in 1978. It's long (originally a double LP), complex, and just a tad pretentious. Perfect.

Although it continues Oldfield's characteristic mainly instrumental style (save for the Hiawatha recital-singing bit and a few choirs here and there), it's a departure from the more hippy-folky Tubular Bells-Hergest Ridge-Ommadawn mould. In fact its the album our Michael made after undergoing his Exegesis coming out of his shell therapy. He even went so far as to cut his hair, shave his beard off and wear a jacket for the photo on the cover of Incantations,which has sadly been replaced by an iceberg thingy (which is actually shaped like the rock on the original). No matter - the music's ace.

It's also the period he went and did a disco single called "Guilty" which is apparently based on Incantations too, but you can jig around to it and shout 'I'm guilty!' for no apparent reason. Bring it on Mike!