Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: April 15 2003, 15:13 |
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To link them to albums...
The Manor was used for Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge, and also for the african drums on Ommadawn (it was later used for parts of Platinum too). It was owned by Virgin, then sold in the 1990s by EMI after they bought the company. Part of the terms was that the buildings could never be used for musical purposes again. As far as I know, it's a private house, owned by some member of the aristocracy.
Mike did live there while recording Tubular Bells, so it could be counted as one of his homes even though he didn't own it.
The Beacon, opposite Hergest Ridge, was where he recorded Ommadawn (I have a feeling it was using equipment borrowed from The Manor Mobile). It's also a private house now, having once been open as a guest house for a while.
The next one, Througham, was where he recorded Incantations and parts of Platinum. This is the studio which you can see in the Blue Peter feature. He moved in very shortly after finishing Ommadawn.
Following that came the house in Denham, where he recorded other parts of Platinum, QE2, Five Miles Out and Crises.
Mike then avoided the UK for a while, for tax purposes, and so recorded Discovery in a house in the Swiss Alps. I believe he also recorded some of Islands there (Pierre Moerlen said it was recorded in the Alps, but on the French side - I think it's most likely he remembered wrong, but it's possible Mike had more than one house by Lake Geneva...).
As far as I know, all the rest were recorded at Roughwood, with the exception of Tubular Bells II, much of which was produced in Los Angeles (not all of it, though - certainly the early parts done with Tom Newman were recorded at Roughwood). Roughwood is the studio which features an area decorated in the same manner as the live room in The Manor (which he mentioned having done in the Elements video), complete with clouds motif on the walls and cartwheel suspended from the ceiling.
It's still Mike's current base, though for a time he lived at a separate house a few miles away, by the river Thames - this is the house he sold recently.
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