Tr3s Lunas


Tr3s Lunas is a record album written and mostly performed by Mike Oldfield. It was released in 2002 by Warner Music with a bonus CD containing a demo program for a PC game, Tres Lunas.

Background

Title

When translated from the Spanish language to English, the album name Tres Lunas is Three Moons. This is reflected in the typeface on the album cover, with the letter 'e' being replaced with a numeric '3'. Oldfield stated that the title was inspired by an Italian restaurant in Ibiza called , which uses two mirrored C-shaped moons as a logo - as well as by the fact that the Tres Lunas game, which he created simultaneously with the music, features three moons within its landscape.

Recording

Oldfield's sister, Sally makes a speaking appearance on this album. The last previous Mike Oldfield album which she had appeared on was 1978's Incantations. The main vocalist for "To Be Free" is the Jazz singer Jude Sim. British-Asian vocalist called Amar, who first appeared on Tubular Bells III, also contributes vocals to the album. The album was recorded at Oldfield's Roughwood Studios, with additional parts recorded at Plan 1 Studios, Munich.
The saxophone sound is played with the use of a guitar synthesizer.

The game

Tres Lunas was the vehicle for Oldfield's first publicly released MusicVR game. It was followed by Maestro. Some of the music from the Tres Lunas game eventually ended up on Oldfield's Light + Shade album.

Artwork

The cover is from an original idea by Hans Claesson of Kebawe.

Track listing

  1. "Misty" – 3:59
  2. "No Mans Land" – 6:08
  3. "Return to the Origin" – 4:38
  4. "Landfall" – 2:19
  5. "Viper" – 4:32
  6. "Turtle Island" – 3:40
  7. "To Be Free" – 4:21
  8. "Fire Fly" – 3:46
  9. "Tr3s Lunas" – 4:35
  10. "Daydream" – 2:15
  11. "Thou Art in Heaven" – 5:22
  12. "Sirius" – 5:47
  13. "No Mans Land" – 2:56
  14. "To Be Free" – 3:56

    Personnel