Hergest Ridge Mike Oldfield

Released as another lengthy composition, Hergest Ridge was the album that followed Mike Oldfield's momentous Tubular Bells release, with many of the same instrumental elements and methods employed throughout its two sections…

Released as another lengthy composition, Hergest Ridge was the album that followed Mike Oldfield's momentous Tubular Bells release, with many of the same instrumental elements and methods employed throughout its two sections. Because of the time of its release, Hergest Ridge was overshadowed by the effects of Oldfield's first album for Virgin, but even so he manages to invoke some interesting patches of music by using instruments like the glockenspiel, sleigh bells, the Lowrey organ, oboes, and a variety of mandolins and guitars to maintain the same type of diversity as Tubular Bells. Symphonic throughout most of the album's two parts, the highlight of Hergest Ridge is Oldfield's use of 90 multi-tracked guitars clustered together to create one of the most unique sounds ever to surface on his albums…

Released as another lengthy composition, Hergest Ridge was the album that followed Mike Oldfield's momentous Tubular Bells release, with many of the same instrumental elements and methods employed throughout its two sections. Because of the time of its release, Hergest Ridge was overshadowed by the effects of Oldfield's first album for Virgin, but even so he manages to invoke some interesting patches of music by using instruments like the glockenspiel, sleigh bells, the Lowrey organ, oboes, and a variety of mandolins and guitars to maintain the same type of diversity as Tubular Bells. Symphonic throughout most of the album's two parts, the highlight of Hergest Ridge is Oldfield's use of 90 multi-tracked guitars clustered together to create one of the most unique sounds ever to surface on his albums…

A curious four-LP set consisting of the original version of Ommadawn, a vastly remixed version of Hergest Ridge, a remixed/remodeled version of Tubular Bells, and a platter called Collaborations in which Oldfield's bits on the recordings of others were excerpted, often with the result that sans context, the excerpts made little sense (certainly the case with Oldfield's work alongside David Bedford)…

Mike Oldfield is a bit of an enigma. On the one hand is the artist who almost single-handedly ushered in the genre of new age music with his epic masterpiece Tubular Bells, and then followed that with several albums, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, and even Tubular Bells II and III, all with tracks that invariable meandered for half an hour or more through various musical ideas and soundscapes – and no doubt would have gone on a lot longer had it not been for the constraints of vinyl and the restrictions on the length of musical compositions that would physically fit on two sides of a piece of plastic with micro grooves…

A few years back Gonzo released the original soundtrack for Tony Palmer's "The Space Movie" 1979 documentary by Mike Oldfield. It consisted of consists of the un-edited sountrack (movie commentaries and all) which includes pieces from Oldfield's released "Tubular Bells", "Hergest Ridge", "Ommadawn" and "Portsmouth" and also excerpts from what was Oldfield's then-new album, "Incantations". The film also made use of the orchestral arrangements of Oldfield's first two albums, "The Orchestral Tubular Bells" and notably "The Orchestral Hergest Ridge" (with the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra), which has never been released before. And now… The demos.

In 1973, Mike Oldfield burst onto the British music scene with his debut album Tubular Bells, two long instrumental suites in which Oldfield stitched together a series of melodies into a grandly scaled work in which he played the many instruments himself. The album was an audacious beginning to a career than saw him become one of the most respected artists in progressive rock, as well as a successful film composer. The Complete Mike Oldfield is a collection released in 1985 which features selections from his first ten solo albums, as well as highlights from his score for the film The Killing Fields.

Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is a British musician, songwriter, and producer best known for his debut studio album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success. He is regarded as one of the greatest multi-instrumentalists of all time. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield plays a range of instruments, which includes keyboards, percussion, and vocals. He has adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient, and new age music.

In 1973, Mike Oldfield burst onto the British music scene with his debut album Tubular Bells, two long instrumental suites in which Oldfield stitched together a series of melodies into a grandly scaled work in which he played the many instruments himself. The album was an audacious beginning to a career than saw him become one of the most respected artists in progressive rock, as well as a successful film composer. The Complete Mike Oldfield is a collection released in 1985 which features selections from his first ten solo albums, as well as highlights from his score for the film The Killing Fields.

The Essential Mike Oldfield is a good overview of highlights from Mike Oldfield's Virgin and Warner recordings. Some of the tracks are included in their original form, while others – including, inexplicably, "Tubular Bells III" – are present in edited or remixed versions…