Return to Ommadawn - Mike Oldfield - The Music that Dreams are made of!

One of the most interesting and thoughtful gifts I received from my wife for Valentine's Day was Mike Oldfield's long-awaited sequel to his 1975 album Ommadawn, titled Return to Ommadawn. 

 

 

I have to admit, I have been listening to a lot of great music by some of my favourite artists over the last few months, much of that new releases of original albums, with some new works thrown in, which have produced some very emotional responses, and this album certainly produced some "lump in the throat" moments.

 

Like the original, Return to Ommadawn has only 2 tracks, Return to Ommadawn Part 1 and Return to Ommadawn Part 2, each of which is over 20 minutes long, making the new album somewhat longer than the original. Like the original, the tracks are made up of various segments of mainly instrumental pieces that reflect both Celtic and African musical influences, along with a strong touch of New Age folk woven throughout.  Like many - if not most - of Mike Oldfield's albums, the long duration of each track makes them ideal for zoning out to, or meditating on a theme, or whatever your pastimes involve.  I like to think of these as the Music That Dreams Are Made Of, because I certainly have created innumerable dreams and scenes while listening to Oldfield albums, and Return to Ommadawn is no exception when it comes to inspiration generation. 

 

There is enough similarity between the original Ommadawn and Return to Ommadawn, with the Ommadawn theme motif occurring throughout. And I definitely had a lump in the throat at the reprise of On Horseback, even though it was a more fragmented version than the original.  I do have to be honest, though, and say there were some musical treatments in the original that I missed in the new album, such as the Uilleann pipes of Paddy Moloney, which was always one of my favourite pieces of the original. 

On the other hand, I was surprised at the inclusion of musical motifs from other Oldfield albums and songs, such as that from The Voyager, from the album of the same name, as well as a semblance of the motif from First Steps, from the Light + Shade album. While it is interesting that Oldfield apparently has a penchant for recycling riffs and melodies from album to album - a trend I have noticed on more than one occasion - one tends to hope that this is more in oversight than intention, or, even more alarmingly, a lack of creativity.

 

All-in-all, I am very taken by the album, and will definitely be listening to it repeatedly for a long time.  The original was one of my favourite Oldfield albums, along with Incantations, and Return to Ommadawn brings back all of those memories, as well as setting up a whole set of new Dreams and Inspirations! And the 5.1 surround sound DVD is an awesome musical experience in and of its own right!