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BIOGRAFIA

Biografia extraida del libro que acompaña a la recopilacion: Elements 4-CD Box Set

LEARNING THE GAME: 1953-1971

Michael Gordon Oldfield was born in the town of reading england on May 15,
1953. His father, raymond, was a doctor who owned a guitar acquired while serving
in the royal Air Force in egypt during World War II. Mike remembers that his
father "used to play the guitar every Christmas Eve, sining the only song he knew,
Danny Boy". Mike also attributed his early interest in music to the virtuoso guitarrist
Bert Weedon: "I saw him on the television when I was seven and immediately persuaded
my father to buy me my first guitar. in fact, if wasn't for Bert I might never have
taken it up in the first place." The oldfields turned out to be a musical family. Mike's
older brother Terry later became a composer of film and television music and his
sister sally went on to be a professional singer.
By the age of ten, Mike was already composing instrumental pieces on acoustic
guitar. The guitar was more than just an instrument to him. It was a way out of a family
situation that was harrowing and had in many ways cut him off the world at
large.
Throughout the previousdecade there had been a very healthy acoustic music
scene in England. The music was performed at the many folk clubs opened during
this period. It was at the local folk club that the young Mike Oldfield began to gain
the sense that his musical ideas might have a wider audience
"i used to have two fifteen-minute instrumentals which I'd play at the local folk clubs
in which I would go through all sports of moods," he recalled. "I even did bits of detuning
the strings totally and playing and bending the strings around the neck and
doing all kinds of stuff. The minute I came home from school the entire weekend
would be spent practising and playing guitar." He was also getting involved with
electric music, playing instrumental pieces by The Shadows in an amateur beat
group.
When Mike was 13 the Oldfield family moved to Romford in Essex. In 1967 he left
school and with his sister Sally formes Salyangie, a folk voice and guitar duo. They
were signed up by the trasanlantic record label which issued the album Chidren
Of The Sun in 1968 and a single Two Ships in 1969. At this stage, Mike's guitar playig
was strongly influenced by the "folk baroqhe" style popularised b John
Renbourn and bert Jansch.
After a year, Sallyangie came to end. Mike turned back to rock music, forming a
short-lived group called Barefoot. This led to a job as bass player with Kevin Ayers &
The Whole World. Ayers had been a founder member of Soft Machine but left the
group in 1968. The following year he made a solo album Joy Of A Toy, forming a
touring band in March 1970. Among the members of the Whole World was David
Bedford on keyboards. Aclassically-trained composer, Bedford became close
friends with Mike, encouraging him in his composition of an early version of Tubular
Bells. While touring the Whole World, Mike came into contact with Centipede, a
very large jazz orchestra led by Keving Tippett. The range of instruments involved was
one influence on the multi-instrumental character that Mike later gave to his own
compositions.
Kevin Ayers & The Whole World made two albums, Shooting At The Moon and
Whatevershebringswesing before splitting up in August 1971. By now Mike was
playing lead guitar and his proficient solos with Kevin Ayers were already gaining him
a reputation as a master musician. He later described his own stage performance
with the Ayers band: "I would do an electtric guitar solo and depending on how
pissed I was, I ussed to let it feed back and do somersaults all over the floor."


THE ROAD TO TUBULAR BELLS: 1971-1973
During this period he began to put together the musical ideas that were to result in
Tubular Bells. Using a tape recorder borrowed from Kevin Ayers he discovered that
by masking the "erase" head with a small piece of cardboard he could record more
than one instrument. By using this device he was able to commit to tape the motifs
and instrumental ideas required to ralise an ambition. That ambition was to create a
symphonic work, similar to the large-scale compositions for full orchestra in several
movements found in classical music. With the tape equipement set up in his bedroom
at the house which he shared with other members of the Kevin Ayers band,
the ideas for the new work slowly began to take shape.
Having set to work to create music. Mike decided to play all of 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 a grand piano, a classical guitar to a
Farfisa organ. While still working with Kevin Ayers, he had contributed to recordings
made a famous Abbey Road studios in London. He soon found that the studio
had a storeroo that was full of all kinds of instruments. By arriving early for the sessions
he was able to experiment with these instruments and to incorporate new
sounds and textures into his musical ideas.
Working on his own meant that all of the deep emotions he was experiencing at this
time went into the music. In any case, it is doubtful whether Mike's state of mind
would have allowed him to endure the pressure of working with others for long. This
is especially true of a work that increasingly became a vehicle for expressing emotions
which he was finding it harder and harder to live with.
Having created a rough tape of his ideas he set off around the music industry to try
to convice someone to take the project on. His efforts were met with universal
rejection. He was told the project was "not marketable", meaning that if were made
at all nobody would want to buy it.
Obviously this was to put his faith in the work to the test. Having composed the hypnotic
opening, the original motif (the theme that is repeated and developed in an
artistic work), a vision of the ultimate success of the work never left him.
if only he could get it recorder, released and promoted!
A chance meeting opened the way to that future. Mike had left the Kevin Ayers band
and, to earn a living, he took occasional jobs as a guitarrist. One of these was working
in the house band of the London production of Hair, the "tribal love-rock musical"
for œ5 a night. He also briefly played bass with a band led by soul singer Arthur
Lewis. The group went to record at recently-opened studio located in a manor
house at Shipton-on-Cherwell, 20 miles from Oxford.
The Manor recording studios were being built for Richard Branson by Tom Newman,
assisted among others by Simon Heyworth. The team were all friends. There were
also various girlfriends in attendance as well as a cook and cleaners and gardeners.
As Mike was later to recall, "the whole thing felt like some sort great big family."
the atmosphere at the studio and the attitude of Newman and Heyworth allowed
Mike the opportunity to play a rough tape of his musical ideas. The immediate reaction
from both men was the they loved it! Heyworth and Newman then undertook a
campaing to convice Branson to release the work and to provide studio time at
The Manor to get it recorder. An initial approach convinced them that the time was
not right. The project had to await the arrival of Simon Draper who joined Branson to
set up the Virgin label. Draper had wide musical knowledge and, on hearing Mike's
ideas, he was immediately enthusiastic.
Mike had continued to rehearse and to refine his ideas which now had been given a
name: Tubular Bells (earlyer titles had inclued Breakfast In Bed and Opus One).But
he had almost given up hope of being able to realise his dream when Draper
offered a week of studio at The Manor. A large selection of instruments was
assembled in the studio and work commenced. During that week mike succeeded
in recording most of the first part, with the rest of the work recorded at random sessions
over following months.
From the start Mike was pushing the then "state-of-the-art" recording facillities to the
limit. Very soon all 16 tracks were in use. As more and more instruments were
recorded, the sessions became a test of Heyworth and Newman's inventive skills
as sound engineers as well as a test of their memories.
The track sheet stretched most of the way across the studio floor. The studio equipment
was not automated and all the work was done by hand with Mike, Simon
Heyworth and Tom Newman using all available fingers on the mixing board. This
was no producer/artist relationship but one where all three men learned together
as they went along.
During the sessions Mike played more than 20 instruments and over 2.000 tape
overdubs were made. The music was all his own work the exception of Viv
Stanshall (vocals), Jon Field (flute), Steve Broughton (drums) and Mundy Ellis
(vocals). Tom Newman and simon Heyworth were credited as co-producers.
When the sessions were completed, Branson took the tepes of Tubular Bells to the
music industry trade fair, MIDEM, in Cannes in January 1973. One executive of an
American company told him, "slap some vocals on it and I'll give you $20.000".
When nobody showed interest, branson and Draper decided to release the album
on their new Virgin Records label.
Tubular Bells was issued on May 25, 1973, The work emerged from the recording
and mixing process as truly original art. Critics did their best to define it. The public
simply took it to theirs hearts.
The reviews in the UK press were ecstatic. The influential radio disc jockey John
Peel wrote that it was "a record that quite genuinely covers new and uncharted territory"
, with music that "combines logic with surprise, sunshine with rain". "A vast
work, almost classical in its structure and in the way a theme is stated and deftly
worked upon," said the Melody Maker. Some reviewers also thought they knew
what Mike's influences were. "The texture of Tubular Bells owes much to Sibelius,
Vaughan Williams, Michael Legrand and the Last Night Of The Proms," wrote the
television producer Tony Palmer.
Tubular Bells will always stand on this own as a moment in the history of "rock music"
that captured the heart and imagination of so many people. It is also a starting-point
from which to appreciate the many changes and discoveries made by its creator as
he grew from a 19-year-old into maturity. The album went into te UK charts in July
and soon roe to No. 1. Tubula Bells began to sell all over Europe.
in June 1973, a live performance of tubular Bells was given at the Queen Elizabeth
Hall in London. Joining Mike on stage were guitarists Mick Taylor (of The Rolling
Stones), Steve Hillage (Gong), Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and Ted Speight. There were
also David Bedford, Kevin Ayers and Pierre Moerlen, the percussion player from
avant-garde rock bang Gong who would be one of Mike's regular musicians for
many years to come. Although billed to apear, Stevie Winwood was unable to perform
because he had not been able to attend enough rehearsals. The response of
the audience was described by the reviewer from the New Musical Express: "The
entire audience rose to its feet and hollered for more. It was one of those rare spontaneous
outbusts of appreciation."
Tubular Bells was also issued in the US but it was slower to achieve success there.
The boost needed for the album to sell in large numbers came when film director
William Friedkin decided to use a four-minute extract in the controversial horror
movie The Exorcist. Mike had not been consulted about the association of his work
with the film and told interviewers that he was less than happy about it . In the UK, a
Tubular Bells single was aso released along with a remixed version of the album in
the new "quadraphonic" format, a sound system that needed four speakers for its
full impact. To show of the wonders of the system, the "quad" Tubular Bells included
an extra sequence of an aeroplane flying around which was inserted after the
Sailor's Hornpipe.

THE RELUCTANT STAR: 1974-1975
Mike Oldfield had dreamed of the success that would come if ever Tubular Bells
were released. When that success arrived he found the pressure very hard to cope
with. Emotionally exhausted by the process of recording Tubular Bells, he retreated
to a new home he had found for himself in Herefordshire. It was here that he began
to create his next work which was to be named after the nearby Hergest Ridge.
Released in England in September 1974, like Tubular Bells it was an album containing
a single composition. Again almost all the instrumental work was by Mike himself.
The effect most commented on by reviewers was the section in which 90 multitracker
guitars created the effect of what one critic called "an electronic thunderstorm".
The other musicians contributing to the album included Sally Oldfield and
Clodagh Simmonds (vocals), June Whiting and Lindsay Cooper (oboes) and Ted
Hobart (trumpet). For Mike, the composition of music was a constant work in
progress. The symphonic form used in Tubular Bells was continued in a series of
later works: Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, Incantations, QE2 and Amarok.
Hergest Ridge went straight to the top of the UK album chart. Virgin Records took
out television advertising, although the wording of the commercials had to be
changed. The advertisement had originally stated that the album would be avaliable
from "Virgin an other immaculate record shops". This was deleted because of
possible objections from the Catholic Church.
Although a few thought it inferior to Tubular Bells, the overwhelming majority of the
critics loved Hergest Ridge. One Called it "the closest rock music has got to the
classical symphony". Another wrote of "a series of emotional peaks bursting here
and there through the tickling tranquilliti".
In December 1974, orchestral arrengements of Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge
were performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert was planned by
David Bedford who conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guitar solos
by Steve Hillage. Mike himself played the guitar on the studio recording of the same
works, released in early 1975 as The Orchestral Tubular bells. Later that year these
orchestral arrangements were performed in Glasgow and Newcastle. In scotland,
Steve Hillage played the guitar parts with the Scottish National Orchestra, and the
soloist in the north-east was Andy summers, later of The Police
The sense of humor evident in the 2introduction to the instruments" section of
Tubular Bells was well to the fore on Don Alonso, a single issued in march 1975.
With the aid of Chris cutler (drums), David Bedford (vocals) and Kevin Ayers (wine
bottles), Mike told the story of a bullfighter who "worked for Oxo".
In more serious vein, he released Ommadawn in September 1975. His third great
work of Symphinoc rock, it had taken nine months to record. On Ommadawn, Mike
played almost 20 instruments rangin from guitars to grand piano and spinet. The
album incorporated music from Africa and ireland through the London-based
percussion group Jabula and the ullean piping of Paddy Moloney, leader of the
Chieftains. Other contributing artists included Terry and Sally Oldfield, members of
the Hereford City Band and local recorder-player Leslie Penney. Penney was also
feactured on Mike's Christmas single, a version of the traditional carol In Dulci Jubilo.
The record go to No.4 in the UK charts.
Although most reviewers greeted Ommadawn as another triumph, a tone of resentment
at Mike's continuing success crept into some critics, comments on the
album. Perhaps influenced by the growing fashion for "back to the roots" pub rock,
one UK pop paper called Ommadawn "band and inconsequential, excellent background
music for dinner parties".
Although he had not yet returned to touring or live performance of his own work,
Mike contributed to albums by other misicians with whom he ws associated. His
guitar-playing could be heard on records released in 1975 by David Bedford, Edgar
Broughton and Tom Newman.
The impact of Tubular Bells continued into 1975. In that year the work was named
Best instrumental Composition at the Grammy awards in New York and the new-found
popularity of the instruments themshelves caused manufacturers Premier to
launch a new range of rigid-frame chimes. In another dimension, a reader wrote to
Mayfair magazine: "the most exciting moment of my sexual life was achieved only
recently when we both finally managed to climax together at the finale of Tubular
Bells by Mike Oldfield."

OUT OF THE LIMELIGHT: 1976-1978

The following year now world-famous Tubular Bells theme appeared as a disco
record by the Champs Boys, a bunch of French session musicians. It was almost
all that was heard of Mike's music in 1976, although fans of equestrian sports heard
an extract from Ommadawn introducing the televised coverage of The Horse Of
The Year Show.
Mike withdrew from public view for most of the three years from 1976 to 1978. He
later told interviewers that he had psychological problems but he was also working
oin rural Gloucestershire on the music that would be relased as Incantations.
To keep him in the public eye, Virgin compiled Boxed, a four-record set comprising
the three albums already issued and a fourth containing singles, guest appearances
on other artists' records and an unreleased vocal by Mike on Speak (Tho'
You Only Say Farewell).
The only new work from Mike himself in 1976 was the Christmas single, Portsmouth,
another traditional tune arranged by Oldfield, This got to No3, one place higher
than In Dulci Jubilo.
In January 1977 Mike made his first stage appearance for two-and-a-half years as a
guest guitarist in a performance of David Bedford's suite The Odyssey. He followed
this with the release in quick succession of two singles. These were a version of the
Wiliam Tell Overture and Cuckoo, another arrangement of a traditional English folk
tune. Neither was a hit.
Although Mike himself was inactive for the rest of the year, his works continued to
receive live performances. In May, Steve Hillage repeated his solo appearance with
the Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge, while what
was announced as the first live performance of Ommadawn was given at Trinity
College, Dublin by the Liffey Light Orchestra.
The fourth album of original material, Incantations, finally appeared at the end of
1978. In the years since Ommadawn, the British pop world had been turned
upside-down by the arrival of punk rock. Shut away in his country retreat, the impact
of punk had passed Mike by. Asked in 1977 by an interviewer for his views on this
new trend, he had answered, "Punk rock ? I've neever heard of it." The changed
atmosphere caused Incantations to be less successful than its predecessors,
although it still reached the Top 20 in Britain. Out-takes from Incantations plus portions
of Tubular Bells and Portsmouth were used on the soundtrack of The Space
Movie, a television documentary by Tony Palmer which celebrated the tenth anniversary
of the July 1969 moon landing by US astronauts.
Around this time Mike undertook numerous interviews to promote the album and to
talk about his change of personal outlook. This was caused by his attendance at a
seminar held by exegesis, he believed he had discovered a more positive
side to his character. In a press release of the time he was quoted as saying, "I
underwent what I would describe as "rebirth" experience, which gave me a lot of
insight into myself and human nature. I have started again."
In March 1979, Mike released a single, Guilty, that showed a movement towards
more conpemporary rock sound. Some reviewers detected a "disco" feeling in the
track which he recorded with session musicians in Ney York. Later in 1979 came
Platinum, his fifth album of original material. The main composition,
Platinum, was broken into five sections and interspersed with shorter songs and
instrumentals. Among these were Punkadiddle, the gentle satire on the punk movement,
and sally, a song for the mother of his young daughter Molly. As well as musical
contributions from his siblings Sally and Terry, Platinum included vocals from
Maddy Prior of folk-rock band Steeleye Span.
The decade ended for Mike with release of a Christmas single for fourth successive
year. Like Portsmouth, Blue Peter was a naval hornpipe and already widely
know as the theme of a children's television show of the same name. Despite this,
Mike's single only reached No. 19 in the UK chart. Royalties from Mike's Blue Peter
single were donated to the Cambodia appeal launched by the children's television
programme of the same name.


BAND ON THE ROAD: 1979-1984

Although he is a master of the recording studio, live performance has played an
important part in Mike's artistic life. Having been through therapy in the late 1970s,
he felt ready to take a large group of musicians on the road. This resulted in the live
set, Exposed.
The first Mike oldfield tour place in 1979. It began almost six years after Tubular
Bells was released. The lavish show was performed by an orchestra and chorus of
50 musicians. There was a crew of 25 roadies and technicians and three articulated
lorries full of equipment. Among the performers were Maddy Prior (performing the
sequence from Longfellow's poem Hiawatha included in Incantations), guitarists Phill
beer and Nico Ramsden and Pierre Moerlen with his brother Benoit on percussion.
The troupe also included two traditional folk musicians, Robin Morton and Ringo
McDonough, as werr as members of the Queens College Girls Choir. There was
also a visual dimension incorporating films specially made by lan Eames.
The tour opened in Madrid And Barcelona where Mike and the musicians performed
Incantations and Tubular Bells to what one journalist called "an audience of
30.000 frenzied young Spaniards". There were 11 further concerts in Belgium,
France, Holland and Germany hich were a success with critics and audiences
alike. In August, Virhin released Exposed, a double live album recorded during the
tour. In later years, Mike revealed that the tour itself had been a financial disaster.
In the spring of 1980, Mike formed an eleven-piece group for a 40-date tour of
Europe with a show featuring material from Platinum. Its members included saxophonist
Bimbo Acock, Pierre Moerlen and vocalist Wendy Roberts. Ian Eames
again provied film sequences for back projection including a shimmering
seascape in which a glider soared and turned. The live shows culminated at the
Knebworth Festival in July. After flying in by helicopter, he was second on the bill to
The Beach Boys and Lindisfarne: Santana also performed. The excellence of Mike's
musicianship won over the Record Mirror reviewer, who wrote: "the sound was crystal
clear, highlighting the new colour and shading of his arrangements."
In keeping with the nwe emphasis on lighter aspects of his work he issued two
cover versions as singles in the album of 1980. The first was Arrival, a toungue-in-cheel
salute to Abba, one of the new pop bands which had pushed progressive
rock away from centre stage in the pop scene. This was followed by a more whole-hearted
tribute. Wonderful Land was a revival of a 1962 tune by The Shadows
whose leader Hank Marvin had been an inspiration to all junior guiterists of Oldfield's
generation.
It is ironic that many people who do not know his work well look upon Mike as primarily
a keyboard player. His main instrument is in fact the guitar. His guitar work has
many references to the styles of John Renbourn and Bert Jansch, two acoustic
instrumentalists who were an early influence on him. He spent many hours
analysing and learning their music and through this process he developed a formidable
guitar technique. As an electric guitar player Mike can stand comparison to
the best England has produced.
Both Arrival and Wonderful Land appeared on QE2, an album in the mould of
Platinum. This time the title track took up side one of the album and reappeared as
a finale at the end of side two. QE2 was co-produced with engineer David
Hentschel who had previously worked with Genesis. Hentschel told an interviewer,
"I've always loved Mike's stuff. All his ideas were fresh to me and all mine fresh to
him. It was all great fun and I believe it's got to be fun if you want to do a really good
job." The contributing musicians on QE2 included Phil Collins on drums, Rick Fenn
(guitar) and singer Maggie Reilly. The former vocalist with the Scottish soul/rock
band Cado Belle, Reilly was to remain an important member of the Oldfield team for
the next five years.
The reviews for QE2 were mixed, with even some of Mike's strongest supporters in
the press believing he was "marking time" rather than presenting new ideas.
However, Mike's fans among the music paper readership struck back. One wrote
to Record Mirror to attack "the critics who have not an inkling of his true greatness. In
50 years' time, his music will still be listened to and enjoyed."
Touring was now becoming an annual event. The 1981 tour of Europe and Britain
was made by a much smaller band whose nucleus was Maggie Reilly, Tim Cross
(keyboards), Rick Fenn (bass) and percussionists Mirris Pert and Mike Frye.
If his more recent albums were no longer heading the charts, the phenomenal success
of Tubular Bells continued. In July 1981, Virgin announced that the ten-millionth
copy of Tubular Bells had been sold. In the same month, Mike played "free concert"
as part of the City of London celebrations of the marriage of Prince Charles
and Lady Diana Spencer. In recognition of this and his "services to exports" he was
later awarded the freedom of the City of London. Earlier he had joined such luminaries
as Billy Idol, Phil Lynott and Noddy Holder as a judge for a national pop group
talent contest.
To end a year in which it seemed that Mike had become part of the establishment,
he was included in Who's Who, the exclusive guide to Britain's "top people": the
only pop musician to appear there apart from Paul McCartney. When asked why
Mike Oldfield had been chosen for the book, a Who's Who staff member sid she
wasn't too certai, "but he is someone everyone has heard of, isn't he?"
In his Who's Who entry, Mike listed his recreations as "aviation (light aircraft, helicopters)".
He had gained hid pilot' licence in 1979, and a flying incident a year later
provided the inspiration for thr title song of the 1982 album Five Miles Out. In August
1980, Mike was piloting a twin-engined Piper Navajo over th Pyrenees mountain
range in Spain when the aircraft was caught in a thunderstorm. "We were tossed
about like a pancake and there was ice collecting on the propellers and rain on the
windscreen and averybody was going aaargh!" he told an interviewer.The incident
was also commemoratedin a painting specially commissioned by Mike from a
renowned aviation artist.
Like Platinum and QE2, Five miles Out cobined one long track with a series of individual
songs. The long piece was Taurus II which included contributions from piper
Paddy Moloney and morris dance team. Among the songs was a highly contemporary
pop tune, Family Man with vocals by Maggie Reilly. When it was issued as a
single Family Man only got to the lower reaches of the UK charts. The next year,
however, a version by Daryl Hall and John Oates was top 10 hit in America.
Family Man was an early example of another musical form which Mike has challenged
himself to work within. Moonlight Shadow, Family man, Shadow On The
Wall, Five Miles Out and Islands are very much pop songs but again they make
use of dynamic change and texture.
Much of the Five Miles Out album was recorder at a studio installed at Mike's home
in Buckinghamshire. The house was chosen because of its easy access to London
and to a local airfield from which Mike could fly his planes.
Five Miles Out was Mike's biggest UK hit since Ommadawn, and its success was
achieved despite the fact that the reviews in the music press were turning negative.
His single Mistake was dimissed by one writer as "mid-70s stadium rock" while
another critic complained that "Oldfield still fiddles with himself for no conceivable
rhyme nor reason." But Mke gave as good as he got. Asked for his "pet hates" by
the New Musical Express, he replied, "I probably hate your decrepit newspaper
more than anything else in the world." He also told the NME that his favourite film
was 2001: A Space Odyssey and his heroes were Sibelius and Capitain Kirk (of the
television series Star Trek).
In 1982 Mike undertook his biggest tour to date, playing in both Europe and North
America. For the world tour he formed a new group which feactured Maggie Reilly
and ex-Gong drummer Pierre Moerlen with two keyboard players. A London concert
was reviewed sympathetically by Ray Coleman in the Daily Express who
described the audience as "young married couples who want to sit comfortably
and absorb music for a night out".
May 1983 was the tenth anniversary of the relase of Tubular Bells. Mike himsef
issued hi eighth album, Crises and played a major concert in July at Wembley in
London. His backing group for the Wembley gig included drummer Simon Phillips
and phil Spalding, the former bass player with Toyah.
Crises was the first recording made with Simon Phillips as co-producer. Its vocalists
included Jon Anderson of Yes and Roger Chapman formerly of Family (on Shadow
On The Wall) as well as Maggie Reilly. The outstanding track was Moonlight
shadow. Sung by Maggie Reilly it was widely understood to be a tribute to the late
John Lennon and it became Mike's most successful single since Portsmouth
seven years earlier.
1984 was one of the busiest years in his career. It began with the news that a donation
of œ300 from Mike to the town of Presteigne in the Welsh border country near
his former home where Hergest Ridge had been written. The money was to pay for
the town's church bell to be rung every night in compliance with the terms of a 1565
will of a local wool merchant.
His professional activities in 1984 included the release of a new album, a 50-concert
European tour and the preparation of his first full-length film score. The film
music was fo The Killing Fields, Roland Joffe's highly-praised movie about the
Cambodian civil wars. Mike found it hard to compose for such a "harrowing and
emotional film". To compose the music he used a video synchroniser linked to his
Fairlight synthesiser. Much of the score was based around ethnic music from
Cambodia. The haunting theme Etude, adapted from a piece by Francisco Tarrega,
was issued as a single in December.
The 1984 album Discovery was the first to be made by Mike outside England. He
built a studio in a house 2000 metres up on a Swiss mountainside overlooking Lake
Geneva where, with Phillips, he co-produced a new selection of songs with an
instrumental antitled The Lake. This time the vocals were shared between Maggie
Reilly and a newcomer, Barry Palmer. Among the songs was To France, inspired by
the life of Mary queen of Scots. Although only modrately successful in the UK, To
France was a big hit across Europe.
by now Mike's abilities as arock guitarist were bringing him a new following among
heavy metal fans. In the metal magazine Kerrang!, veteran journalist chris Welch
enthusiastically quoted the ancient Greek writer Thucydidel in praise of Discovery:
"For we are lovers of the beatiful yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the
mind without loss of manliness."
Music from discovery was strongly feactured in the programme of the 1984
European tour by what had become a house band featuring Maggie Reilly, Simon
Phillips, Phil Spalding and Barry Palmer.


VIDEO YEARS: 1985-1988

In 1985, Virgin decided it was time for a retrospective selection of material from
Mike's 12-year recording career. A doubla album called the Complete Mike Oldfield
was issued. One of the four sides was devoted to unreleased live recordings from
the previous five years. It included some notable guitar playing from the Platinum
tour of 1980.
By now Mike's studio interests were moving towards the use of video in creating
musical works. He had equipped his home studio in Buckinghamshire with state-of-the-art
equipment like a Quantel Mirage computer with which he generated images
for Pictures In The Dark. With singers including Barry Palmer and the 15-year-old
boy soprano Aled Jones, this was conceived as a "video single" and issued in
December 1985.
The Oldfield home studio was also stocked with seven synthesizers, and in a 1986
interview Mike described his working methods as being diametrically opposed to
those musicians who liberally sampled extracts from other people's recordings: "I
take a lot of my own samples and usually make some at the end of the session
from whatever instrument we've been using." In a later interview he explained his
belief in starting from real instruments and not synthesized sounds: "What I object to
in computer music is actually listening to the computer performing. It's like some
kind of sophisticated pianola or barrel organ, it's completely soulless."
During 1986 Mike concentrated on the creation of a video album, eventually
released in October 1988 on video cassette and laser disc as Wind chimes.
Among his collaborations on the visual side was director Alex Proyas who Crowded
House and other bands. The only new recording issued by Mike during 1986 was
the single Shine with vocals by Jon Anderson.
The audio album to accompany Wind Chimes was Islands, released in September
1987. The two-part Wind Chimes instrumental piece was insired by music heard
by Mike on a visit to Bali and was co-produced with Simon Phillips. Among the
musicians contributing to the Islands album were Kevin Ayers, former Roxy Music
saxophonist Andy Mackay and Geof Downes on keyboards. The feactured singer
on the title track was Bonnie Tyler, and in October 1987 Mike made a rare television
appearance performing the song with Bonnie.


END OF THE VIRGIN ERA: 1989-1991
In 1989, Mike created a seven-minute version of Tubular Bells to be performed on
the Nicky Campbell show on the BBC Radio One radio network. This helped to rekindle
the idea of creating a follow-up to his first great album, reworking its themes
with 1990s music technology. Tubular Bells II had been on the agenda for many
years. Executives at Virgin Records had been eagerly awaiting it and i 1982 the
New Musical Express ran a big story declaring that TB II was imminent! Now Mike
was preparing himself to produce that follow-up album.
Before that was to happen, he released trhee more recordings. The first was Earth Moving
in 1989 which feactured no less than seven lead vocalists among its nine
tracks. Maggie Reilly returned to sing Blue Night while former Manfred Mann's Earth
Band member Chris Thompson was lead vocalist on two tracks.
Amarok (19909 was a return to the format ot the great trilogy of 1973-5. Like Tubular
Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn it was a single symphony-length composition.
Amarok reunited Mike with Tom Newman who had engineered Tubular Bells. In
many ways it is the later work that most resembles Tubular Bells itself. The bells
themselves make a reappearance as does the Caveman.
Amarok is a 52-minute unbroken piece of music which shifts styles from English folk
music to Spanish flamenco to African and it fuses the latest studio and musical
technology with typical Oldfield devices. It is interesting to contrast the sound produced
by 1990s "state-of-the-art equipment" with that created at the newly-opened
Manor studios on Tubular Bells. But in both cases Oldfield shows his mastery of all
the latest advances ad his ability to incorporate them into the creative process.
Heaven's open was issued in 1991 and followed the structure familiar from
Platinum: a major composition plus some conventional songs. For the first time
these Side 2 songs were all sung by Mike himself with no guest vocalist in sight. He
told an interviewer, "I'm feeling much more at ease with my voice now. I'm pleased
to have discovered I'm not as a bad singer as I thought." The band accompanying
Mike included saxophonist Courtney Pine, Simon Phillips and pianist Mickey
Simmonds. The big piece on Heaven's Open was the 20-minute opus Music From
The Balcony.
Having completed his contractual obligations to Virgin Records, the label which he
had helped to launch in 1973, Mike made preparations to record Tubular Bells II. A
new management team opened negotiations for a new recording deal and after 18
years and 14 albums, Mike Oldfield's days as a Virgin recording artist had come to
an edn.
Apart from Tubular Bells which is presented in its entirety, this collection is a snapshot
of Mike's work on the Virgin label. That work spans almost two decades in
which studio and musical technology have undergone dramatic developments and
the world in general has experienced great political and social change. Ha has
described himself as an "ambassador for instrumental music" though his music
bears little relationship to the often tuneless New Age style that has done so much
damage to the credibility of the long instrumental format.
Through al of this Mike has continued to create and develop his art, constantly
exploring every advance in musical technology and incorporating influences and
sounds from around the world. Welcome to the first eighteen years' work of one of
Britain's greatest composers and instrumentalists.

text by Richard Newman and Dave Laing

Biografia (Castellano)

Biografia 1(Ingles)