Tubular Bels

Tubular Bells is the first album of the British musician Mike Oldfield. Album of purely instrumental music, it is one of the largest sales of the Seventies in Great Britain and success founder of the empire Virgin. The introductory topic is universally famous like topic characteristic of the film the Exorcist.

Origin

Mike Oldfield is 17 years old when he undertakes to compose a true symphony rock'n'roll. He is then bass player and guitarist within the group The Whole World , which accompanies Kevin Ayers. At the beginning of 1971, it records, in an artisanal way, a demonstration where all the broad topics of the album are already, for the majority, built and enchâinés. In the months which follow, it does not find any recording company lends to publish an album without sung words nor battery. With the autumn 1971, Mike Oldfield meets members of Virgin (at the time only distributer of discs), starting the new studio of recording The Manor , close to Oxford, and its model subjects to them. It is only one year later, when Richard Branson decided to launch a new label discographic, that he is recontacted, signed and admitted to record during the days when the studio is not rented. Mike Oldfield has at the time 19 years.

The recording was very fast: the first part was recorded in one week, the recording of the second was spread out over several months, with a great irregularity. A few months later, the May 25th 1973, Tubular Bells was the first album published by Virgin under the number of V2001 catalog.

Composition

"Tubular Bells" - share one - 25:36
" Tubular Bells" - share two - 23:20

The composition of Tubular Bells is complex; it is a kind of “symphony rock'n'roll” made up of two parts.

The various topics show an astonishing diversity, and yet they are always connected in a natural way.

The atmospheres created are they also greater diversity; in that, the second part is more surprising: an important passage uses slow and saturated guitars, with a voice gutturale which pre-empts the song practiced in the death metal a few years later… and this second part finishes on instrumental traditional enjoué, The Sailor' S Hornpipe (near to the topic of Popeye the sailor) with an increasing tempo.

Instruments

Mike Oldfield plays almost all the instruments: several types of bells, pianos and organ, guitars (as well as the low one and the mandoline).

The symphony is almost entirely instrumental, with two exceptions near:

the song guttural in a passage of Share Two , without articulated words;
a “master of ceremony” (Vivian Stanshall), announcing the various instruments at the end of Share One : “ Large piano; reed and pipe organ; glockenspiel; low guitar; double speed guitar; two slightly distorted guitars ; mandolin! Spanish guitar, and introducing acoustic guitar; more… tubular… bels! ”

External bonds

http://rcarter.34sp.com/oldfield/tubularbells.html (in English) http://www.dvdreamscape.fr/audio-oldfield-tubular.htm

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