Platinumpty
Group: Members
Posts: 178
Joined: May 2011 |
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Posted: Aug. 29 2013, 11:14 |
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As it's quiet at work, I thought I'd have a bit of fun thinking of where Mike might turn next in his musical journey, now that the creative juices seem to be flowing once more.
MIKE OLDFIELD'S ALBUMS 2014-2020:
1. 2014: Telecaster aka "The Rock Album"
Riding on a wave of critical and commercial success due to his performance at the 2012 Olympics, together with the reissue programme reaching his 80s peak - "Crises" - in 2013, Oldfield released his first original "rock" album in 15 years. After dabbling in classical music and techno/trance/ambient crossover music in the last decade and a half it was refreshing to hear him cut loose again with those guitars, backed up by some of the UK and America's greatest sessioneers including Leland Sklar and Steve Gadd. Steve Lipson's production proved crisp and efficient and while it lacked anything as startling as the odd instrumental juxtapositions of Amarok, Telecaster provided plenty to enjoy. Luke Strut's emotional but edgy vocals prevented the album's occasional lyrical lapses from edging into parody and it was a welcome surprise to hear Christy Moore add gravitas to album highpoint (and lead single) "Whiskey on the Rocks". As ever, the guitar solos were exemplary, Mike managing another cathartic crescendo on seven minute closer "Following the Angels Down", the lyrics joyfully recalling the experience of performing to over a billion viewers back in that heady summer of 2012. Hidden track "Ramble On" proved Oldfield could still tackle a challenging cover version with verve and innovation - even Jimmy Page reportedly loved it.
2. 2015: Wavelength
Having hinted as early as 2013 that there would be another instrumental epic, Oldfield began piecing together musical fragments that didn't quite fit Telecaster's more rigid framework. The album's title held a double meaning that helped shape it's soundworld - both a paean to his seaside home in the Bahamas and a homage to sound itself. Like Amarok the music, a continuous suite of 7 interlinked instrumentals lasting over 75 minutes, contained much "found sound" beginning and ending with a recording of the waves lapping on the shores of Oldfield's personal paradise. The inclusion of Sally Oldfield on backing vocals and Terry Oldfield on flutes as well as it's running time and occasional minimalism brought back memories of Incantations but this album was an altogether less clinical beast than that epic. At times intimate and surprising - steel drums! - Wavelength confirmed that Oldfield had much melodic and compositional inspiration left to explore.
2017 - Tubular Bells IV
It had to happen... and it was with a mix of trepidation and anticipation that Oldfield fans and casual observers alike approached this fourth instalment in the franchise. But whereas TBII was a "happy" mirror image and TBIII a commercial misnomer, TBIV was a cunning deconstuction, a sort of "last word" on the infamous bells. As Oldfield said at the time "Universal loved the idea of course but for me it was really a chance to knock the last nail in the coffin." However, this should not be taken to indicate that there was anything mean-spirited or cynical in the composer's approach. Instead, TBIV utilised all Oldfield's strengths and blended hi-tech digital recording and production techniques with some deft guitar and keyboard playing as each track, simply numbered 1 to 12, tore apart a fragment of his 44 year old opus one and played evil or lively games with it. Coming on in places as if Aphex Twin or Autechre has been let loose on the TB vault, Tubular Bells IV was as much a reinvention of self as a revisitation of old glories. Better still, the bonus remix album, which actually featured Aphex Twin (as well as Orbital, Andrew Weatherall, The Orb, Basement Jaxx and Broadcast) was an absolute joy to listen to. MO was cool again.
2018 - Collabor8 - the "MIND" EP
Beginning as a fundraising project on behalf of mental health charity MIND, Collabor8 saw Mike getting back in the studio (mostly in London, creating a minor autograph-hunter frenzy outside the venerable Abbey Road studios) with actual musicians. The four long instrumental tracks and one song featured an array of legendary and new talent including Robert Plant, Courtney Pine, Kate Bush, Alison Moyet and, most hilariously, Dizzee Rascal. Oldfield does rap? Well, not exactly, but the Rascal's comic ranting adding a much-needed bit of grit amongst the largely soothing suite of celtic and ambient flavoured tracks. Using the likes of Plant, Moyet and Bush to provide wordless vocals was both a PR and creative coup - the spiralling vocal lines of Bush and Plant weaving through Oldfield's multi-tracked and sampled guitars in "Sirocco" quickly became another high-water mark in the Oldfield canon. Simon Phillips' welcome cacophany on "Giant's Causeway" brought back memories of Crises' strident conclusion.
2020 - Shells
Revisiting the format of FMO and Crises, 2020's album saw a side-long piece "Sarajevo" that played upon the double-meaning of the album's title with it's dramatic artwork of a munition-strewn beach. Featuring a moving guest performance by Julian Lloyd-Webber on cello, the piece was inspired by a visit to the famously war-torn European city of its title. The guitars were all acoustic but their impact was electric. In contrast, the five songs on "side two" (as if such designations still had meaning in a post-vinyl epoch) shower Oldfield's sunnier side. "Sandcastles" even revisted the childhood vibe of "On Horseback" with Oldfield's spoken-word verses alternating with Adele's vibrant choruses in his most uplifting "childlike" work since Saved by a Bell. Closing rocker "Sideways" used the image of a scuttling, sideways crab as the metaphor for his own, often unpredictable career direction. At 67, Oldfield was still able to surprise and confound expectations.
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Jeez - I spent way too much time on that!
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