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Post by stevemacdonald on Mar 13, 2008 14:34:35 GMT
There is one thing I find very distracting about Oldfield's music, and I wonder if anyone else has picked up on it: He tosses small samplings from his signature "Exorcist" keyboard riff into his other music, like he can't quite let it go. In fact a good deal of his work sounds like just so many variations on the Exorcist theme. You'll hear it plainly enough in the new YouTube video listed ( es.youtube.com/watch?v=EhZg0Vl1JCo ) around 50 seconds in. |
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Post by milewalker on Mar 14, 2008 17:35:19 GMT
Hi Steve,
Yes I noticed. For the record, much the same thing is true of James Horner.
Jon
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Post by postscript on Mar 14, 2008 17:55:15 GMT
Hi David.
Great to hear such a wonderfully spontaneous post of obviously great admiration and meaning to you. Welcome to the forum and I look forward to any opportunity for you to attend and report on a Hayley concert. You obviously have the feel for what we look for.
As you will find here your reception to Hayley is one of those moments in a life which you never forget.
Delighted to hear from Spain
Peter S.
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Post by Stephany on Mar 14, 2008 20:07:34 GMT
Hi all,
There is an interesting article about Mike's CD in today's Daily Mail.
[/color]
'What's great about the Guggenheim is that it's not a normal concert hall,' says Mike, 54. 'From the outside, it looks like a seashell. Inside, it looks like the workings of the inner ear.
'With an orchestra, you never know what you're going to get. But when I heard this album being played by one, it sounded great. And, in the Guggenheim, Hayley's voice just floats up and away.'[/color]
Music Of The Spheres is a classical piece -- with its instrumental ideas transposed for an orchestra by modern classical composer Karl Jenkins -- but it is also instantly recognisable as Oldfield. From its use of repetitive sequences in the style of Tubular Bells, to the way in which an eerie mood builds gradually over 14 brief yet complex tracks, it features plenty of familiar hallmarks.
On Musica Universalis, there is even the sound of the trusted bells themselves, although Oldfield insists the chimes are present this time only because they are a regular part of any symphony orchestra.
'I don't really think of this as a classical album,' he adds. 'I'm not a musicologist, so I don't know what officially constitutes a classical album. But those opening notes of Tubular Bells have been ripped off by so many people that I figured I might as well finally rip them off myself.'
Oldfield's career has been defined, and often overshadowed, by Tubular Bells, the epic he conceived when he was a 19-year-old guitar prodigy living with a group of hippy musicians in a communal house in Tottenham in 1973.
The first album released on Richard Branson's Virgin Records, it spent 279 weeks in the UK chart and sold 15 million copies worldwide. An ambitious, 48-minute suite, it featured Mike playing all 28 instruments and, like Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, became one of the benchmark albums of the progressive rock era. Even today, it is loved or loathed by music fans in almost equal measure.
Oldfield began his recording career at 14 in The Sallyangie, an acoustic folk duo formed with his older sister Sally.
As a bassist and then lead guitarist with the Kevin Ayers Band, he began introducing long instrumentals into his repertoire and badgered Branson and his business partner, Simon Draper, to give him that elusive break.
'They had been fobbing me off for a year,' he recalls. 'I was actually about to apply for citizenship of the USSR, where I thought I could become a state-funded musician. Then the phone rang and it was Simon Draper asking me to come to dinner with Richard and his wife on their houseboat.
'Eventually, he asked me what I needed to make an album. So I gave him a list of guitars, drums and pianos. Tubular bells weren't actually on the list. But, as I arrived at the studio, I noticed they were bringing some out from the last session, and I grabbed them. I had a hunch they might be useful.'
The record's huge success knocked the fragile young star for a loop. He became reclusive, and it was only after he completed a controversial therapy course, Exegesis, in 1978, that he felt fit to tour.
'I had worked so hard making Tubular Bells I was sick of it by the time it came out,' he says. 'When it took off, I was put under great pressure to go out and promote it. But I didn't make Tubular Bells because I wanted people to hear it. I made it for myself.
'So I went to live with a load of sheep on the Welsh border. I didn't want to be a star.'
Nowadays, Oldfield lives in Palma, Majorca, with his family, claiming that Britain has become 'too oppressive'.
'At the end of last summer, I decided I'd had enough. I couldn't believe it when they banned smoking in pubs. Pubs used to be a place where you could do whatever you wanted. Now I can be fined and criminalised for smoking one of my little roll-ups! 'I miss the England I grew up in -- but that doesn't seem to exist any more.' Oldfield does not rule out a tour to support Music Of The Spheres, but there is also a sense that he is happy just recording and being at home.
'I don't depend on music to keep me going the way I used to. I've finally found some contentment in my life, and I'd like to stick around to enjoy it.'
Music Of The Spheres is out on Monday on Universal Music.
[/size][/quote]
Stephany
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Post by martindn on Mar 14, 2008 20:37:40 GMT
Oh well done Stephany. I just posted about this on the "In Concert" thread so you might want to rationalise things a bit.
Martin
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Post by thomas on Mar 14, 2008 21:15:47 GMT
Thanks for the article, Stephany!  The release date of "Music Of The Spheres" in Germany is today.  So, I'll go and buy it tomorrow.  Thomas |
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Dave
Administrator
HWI Admin
Posts: 7,699
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Post by Dave on Mar 15, 2008 0:18:20 GMT
Good article Stephany, thanks.
By the way, I see MOTS is currently up to the no. 2 prerelease album at Amazon UK and no. 4 overall so it looks like it may entering the main charts high in the top 10 next week - fingers crossed!
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Post by thomas on Mar 15, 2008 12:52:38 GMT
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Post by Richard on Mar 15, 2008 18:18:24 GMT
Thanks for the fascinating article, Stephany!  Martin, you mentioned the concert in the Bilbao thread, then Stephany posted a link to this thread, so all the posts are fine as they are. Richard |
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Post by gra7890 on Mar 15, 2008 19:55:56 GMT
Hi Thomas, you showed great restraint not buying it there and then Graham |
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Dave
Administrator
HWI Admin
Posts: 7,699
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Post by Dave on Mar 15, 2008 21:07:17 GMT
Hi guys, I've just received the latest Universal Classics & Jazz newsletter (March Issue) and not surprisingly, the top story is Music of the Spheres. They have included a link to a new video, a short 90 second promo and as you can see, On My Heart with Hayley takes up nearly half of the entire promo video! Here is the streaming videoCheers, Dave |
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Post by gra7890 on Mar 15, 2008 21:35:10 GMT
Thanks Dave, Very enjoyable Graham |
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Post by comet on Mar 15, 2008 21:42:17 GMT
Hi Folks do you think Hayley is also doing the backing vocal to her own main vocal, as in recorded on two or more layers like Enya does ? A favourite method of Mike Oldfields as he played and recorded all the instruments himself on Tubular Bells on a 24 track tape machine. Really must get this when it is OFFICIALLY released. I have been unable to find even the scent of a copy by other means. so far. |
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Post by grant on Mar 15, 2008 23:55:54 GMT
Thanks for the link Dave
It is interesting that Hayley gets so much airplay on the promo. Mr Oldfield must think very highly of her...... but then I don't suppose he'd have asked her to be part of it if he didn't know what to expect!
Best wishes
Grant
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Post by Richard on Mar 16, 2008 8:24:16 GMT
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