Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells [25th Anniversary Remaster, 1998] (1973) [REPOST]

Michael Gordon Oldfield was born in Reading, England in 1953. At the age of 13 he dropped out of school to start a musical career - first with his sister Sally, and later with Kevin Ayers, with whom he played guitar and bass. At the age of 17 Mike was already putting together ideas of creating a symphonic work, similar to the large-scale compositions for full orchestra in several movements found in classical music, using a tape recorder he had borrowed from Ayers. By masking the "erase" head with a small piece of cardboard he could record more than one instrument.

Having set to work to create this music, Mike had decided to play all the instruments himself. With his natural gift for playing he had discovered that he could get a tune of almost any instrument from a glockenspiel to grand piano, a classical guitar to a Farfisa organ.

While working with Ayers, Mike had often contributed to recordings made at the famous Abbey Road studios. In these studios there was a storage room that was full all kinds of instruments. By arriving early for these sessions he was able to experiment with these instruments and to incorporate new ideas and textures into his musical ideas.

After two years of reluctantly working with others, which enabled him to use the Abbey Road studios on his own, he finished a rough demo of his project, which at that time bore the name Opus One. Mike was so content with the result that he sent copies to all major record companies, all of which rejected it as not marketable.

Then came one Richard Branson. Branson ran a chain of record stores and had just finished building a recording studio in a manor house near Oxford. One of the first bands to record at that studio was a band led by soul singer Arthur Lee, in which Oldfield played bass at the time. The brief time spent at the recording studios Mike had the chance to play his tape to Branson and the other owners Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. They loved the idea and immediately drew up a contract with Mike.

Mike spent the next few months at the Manor, recording his masterpiece which by now had been given the name Tubular Bells (after Branson had spent weeks trying to find the "long metallic hanging tubes" Mike had written on his instrument wish-list without knowing the actual name for it). During the sessions he played over 20 instruments and more than 2,000 tape overdubs were made.

After the recording sessions Mike and Richard took the completed Tubular Bells to the Musical Industry Trade Fair, MIDEM in Cannes in January 1973. No one showed interest in the tapes, apart from one executive from the American record company Mercury, who said: "Slap some vocals on it and I'll give you $20,000". They realized they weren't getting anywhere and after two days they put a sign on their stand: "VIRGIN RECORDS - GONE SKIING".

Nobody showed interest in the recordings, so there was no other option left than to release the album themselves; on the new Virgin record label which Branson and Simon Draper had established. The first ever release on Virgin records, V2001: Tubular Bells was released on May 25th, 1973.

The critics had difficulties defining the music and categorizing it. They couldn't, yet the public took the music to their hearts. The album topped the UK charts for months and it became a wide success all over the world.

The USA was the only country where the album wasn't successful. That was, until William Friedkin used a 3-minute excerpt in his shocker movie The Exorcist. Oldfield and Branson were furious that the music had been used without permission, however the American public wondered what that haunting music at the end of the movie was. Because of the demand the 3-minute excerpt was released on single as Tubular Bells: Theme from the Exorcist which eventually boosted the sales of the album to an impressive 16 million copies. ~ Bart Jan van der Vorst, DPRP - Dutch Progressive Rock Page





One of the most popular albums of all time, and a rare case where critical acclaim and true worth can match that popularity. 1973's 'Tubular Bells' is the intense musical output of a troubled man just barely into his 20s, wandering passages of classical depth presented in the dark tones of psychedelic symphonic rock.

It is needless to attempt to chart the styles that Oldfield employs, since they are so numerous, exploratory, and in some cases startlingly unique, all expressed near- singlehandedly by this multi-instrumentalist. When put together the result is music that always seems unfamiliar... yet timeless and evocative, right from that eerie, mesmerizing piano and tuned percussion phrase which just keeps coming and plunges the listener into the whole experience at the start of the album.

Being instrumental, the themes of the album are necessarily abstract, which is the case with most of Oldfield's masterpieces. Even in this debut he was quite simply taking huge slices of life, the good and the bad, the deepest states of mind, and channeling them into these living, breathing musical tapestries. I would say 'Tubular Bells' is in fact the piece with the most uncertainty and confusion, be that by intention or simply by Oldfield's own personality at the time, with sometimes huge shifts between surging, positive venetian crescendos, and lonely acoustic guitar passages of profound sadness. The sound of the bells themselves are spine-tingling when they appear, producing when played loudly that ambiguous wall of sound that gives the album its title and concept - is that the sound of celebration or doom, life or death? What this album brought to the world was a method of performance that broke other artists' needs to stick to one format (a rock five piece, a string quartet, a synth outfit) and used a whole variety of instruments to achieve a far wider range of moods and sounds (kind of like how the Beatles did, only here not limited to pop songs). Since instrumentation is arguably the largest factor in what gives music its depth and distinctiveness, Oldfield's pushing of this diversity into the rock arena was a very significant move in the music world - this was prog itself starting to flourish. Here also are the beginnings of Oldfield's trademark vibrato guitars, his strong, catchy but most of all emotive melodies, and generally unmistakable playing all round.

Forget the legend for a moment, abandon your preconceptions; just listen to 'Tubular Bells' and hear the sound of your own mind and the world around you. It's hard to believe it could ever get better than this, but it did... this genius of our time was just getting started. ~ Review by Thulëatan @ Prog Archives





Tracklisting:
1. Tubular Bells part 1 (25:37)
2. Tubular Bells part 2 (23:20)

Total Time: 48:57

Line-Up:
- Mike Oldfield / grand piano, organs, Glockenspiel, bass, acoustic, electric, fuzz, mandoline-like Spanish & speed guitars, Honky Tonk piano, assorted percussion, Flageolet, Tubular Bells, Concert Tympani, guitars sounding like Bagpipes & voices
- Steve Broughton / drums
- Lindsay Cooper / string basses
- Mundy Ellis / chorus
- John Field / flutes
- Sally Oldfield / chorus
- Vivian Stanshall / Master of ceremonies
- Manor Choir (2)
- Nasal Chorus / (1)