In 1978, Mike Oldfield released his fourth album: 'Incantations'.
Incantations was a double album with four pieces spread across the 4 sides of the vinyl.
It was mostly instrumental.
I remember hearing a fragment of this for the first time while in the car with my family coming back from a trip out to a village pub in Firbeck, South Yorkshire. The radio programme played part of Side 1 as a trail for the album - not sure what channel or show that would have been, but I instantly knew I would need to get this album and that I would love it. At this point, the idea of seeing him was not something that seemed possible. I was yet to see my first live gig and I didn't know how one would go about seeing someone so famous anyway.
The album remains one of my favourites, particularly Side 3 which is basically an extended guitar solo for most of it.
The front cover features Mike on a beach with a distinctively shaped rock behind him.
This is a place called Cap Pregonda on the Spanish island of Menorca.
It is one of those places that I've always wanted to try to get to... I'll get there one day.
Are there any places that you have always particularly wanted to go to which were inspired by an album cover or a piece of music.
The highlight of course was this banger... a multi-million seller which spawned 50 years of music and a business empire...
Listen to Side 2, as Side 1 has already been posted...
I've blogged elsewhere about how this album has been in my life for 50 years, and single-handedly helped determine my musical preferences and taste, with its nods to minimalism, its changes of tone, wonderful guitar solos and emotional arc and final release... which was honed to perfection on 'Ommadawn' several years later.
Also out this year were a range of other classics.
In January, the Sweet released this classic from school discos of the time... and we all dressed like that in the 1970s....
John Martyn released 'Solid Air'.
I saw John perform many times, including at Sheffield Crucible theatre and Devonshire Green in a tent.
March saw the release of another perennial classic... I had this on a good vinyl version with the poster and stickers.
Jethro Tull released 'A Passion Play', Yes released 'Yessongs', Rick Wakeman released 'The Six Wives of Henry the 8th'.
Pat Metheny has released an unexpected digital only single today... I'm seeing him in a few months' time on his latest Side Eye tour, having seen the previous two of these.
This is one of my favourite albums although it is also one of the most frustrating as it never settles for long into a particular theme... and is interrupted by some annoying diversions along the way including the moment when Janet Brown appears...
It is now rather old too, with a special edition on vinyl coming out last year.
The album cover features a number of riddles.
I am told that when men hear its voice, it stays in their ears, they cannot be rid of it. It has many different voices: some happy, but others sad. It roars like a baboon, murmurs like a child, drums like the blazing arms of one thousand drummers, rustles like water in a glass, sings like a lover and laments like a priest...
Amarok was the final album that Mike Oldfield made for Virgin Records.
It contains a coded message for Richard Branson.
I had a vinyl version, requiring you to change half way through - the CD version is more continuous.
I always enjoy hearing this performance from Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Steve Rodby and Nana Vasconcelos.
It's called 'Ozark'.
Here's a studio version. "Ozark" is from "As Falls Wichita, so Falls Wichita Falls", a collaborative album by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, released in 1981.
Sometime in the mid 1970s, my long-haired Uncle Steve played an album while I was at my nana's house in Rotherham. It was unlike anything I'd heard before and I was immediately fascinated by it. It turned out to be an album that was quite new, and was selling thousands of copies.
The album came out on the 25th of May 1973.
This has been in my life for over 50 years, and I could probably imagine and 'play' the whole album perfectly to myself in my head I have heard it so many times, and the various sequels and variations which have emerged since.
I went to a special orchestral performance at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the 50th anniversary, with Brian Blessed.
It had been recorded by one person, who had spent weeks multi-tracking himself playing a whole range of instruments - particularly guitars - a young man called Michael Gordon Oldfield. It was the first issue on a new record label called Virgin records. Friends also liked it very much.
I bought a copy when I was in my record-buying phases and also had a copy on cassette tape. I consequently bought every release from Mike Oldfield in at least one format. He was still my most-listened-to artist according to my end of 2022 Spotify statistics.
The album cover is particularly distinctive with imagery from Trevor Key. It features some waves too of course. Are they constructive or destructive waves?
Here's the first tour that he did.
Here's the use of the track in the film 'The Exorcist'.
The album's name inspired a map of Wainwrights in the Lake District: Tubular Fells.
For me, Oldfield's masterpiece isn't Tubular Bells but his album 'Ommadawn', released two years later.
I was fortunate to see Oldfield play live four times. This included three times when he had the wonderful French drummer Pierre Moerlen in his band.
In 1983, Oldfield played live at Glastonbury to a crowd of 45 000 people.
It was turned into a film, and shown at a cinema in Rotherham in 1984ish. The only way I could see it though was a second feature paired with a slightly soft-porny film... awkward...
And here's a Nottingham performance featuring a version of the band that I also saw, with the excellent Morris Pert on percussion instead of Pierre Moerlen.
I will share the story in another post of my visit to Horse Guards Parade to see the premiere of Tubular Bells III.
The last piece of music that Oldfield released before he retired (and never completed it) was the opening few minutes of 'Tubular Bells 4'....
"Gordon Chapman-Fox impeccably soundtracks the construction and growth of a northern English community from the mid 1970’s to early 1980’s, rendered in shimmering arpeggios and soaring, euphoric leads."
As with several small labels, music is released through Bandcamp, where you can see the variety of releases, many of which have titles themed around a period of house building, when new towns, housing estates and tower blocks were springing up - a period written about by John Grindrod.
There are also some tracks featuring archive audio from a time of great promise and change in urban areas.
An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.
Sigur Rós are one of my favourite bands, and I have seen them play live as often as I can, even before 2012 when they first became particularly prominent by composing music used in a David Attenborough series - even if you don't think you know it, you will have heard it. I went to see them play last year and the person next to me said "I only know one song" - and I knew which one they meant.
Here's the song that introduced them to many:
The most recent concert was with an orchestra down at the Royal Albert Hall.
Here's one of my favourite tracks, as recorded at Abbey Road Studios: Ára Bátur
The track hadn't been played live before.
And then in October - they played it...
There are plenty of videos recorded by those who were present at the concert - see if you can find your favourite.
Vonlenska (Hopelandic) is the non-literal language that forms the unintelligible lyrics sung by the band on some songs, in particular by Jónsi. It is also commonly known by the English translation of its name, Hopelandic. It takes its name from "Von", a song on Sigur Rós's debut album Von where it was first used. However, not all Sigur Rós songs are in Hopelandic; many are sung in Icelandic. Vonlenska has no fixed syntax and differs from constructed languages that can be used for communication. It focuses entirely on the sounds of language; it lacks grammar, meaning, and even distinct words. Instead, it consists of emotive non-lexical vocables and phonemes; in effect, Vonlenska uses the melodic and rhythmic elements of singing without the conceptual content of language. In this way, it is similar to the use of scat singing in vocal jazz.
The band's website describes it as "a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music" it is similar in concept to the 'nonsense' language often used by Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser in the 1980s and 1990s or by Icelandic singer Björk.
It is worth exploring all their discography.
In October 2025, I saw them performing with the London Contemporary Orchestra.
A month-long A-Z of geography based on my Spotify algorithm...
Well. The maestro... it had to be for this letter of the alphabet.
Image: David Bailey
If I had to choose three artists whose music I would only have access to for the rest of my life, Mike Oldfield would be on the list and I'd definitely have some of his first three albums in my Top 10... not that I'm going to compile something like that right now - perhaps by the end of the year.
I've been listening to his music regularly for over 50 years...
Here's a short documentary on how it all started, with Tubular Bells.
A huge amount of video and other material is available around this particular album and how it was recorded and its influence.
I was very envious of Simon Groom who got to see the whole recording process and participate. The resulting piece of music was used for years after. Here's the full version of the session.
I've got all of Mike's albums in some format or other.
I was also fortunate to see Mike play live four times - which many people will also be jealous of perhaps - particularly those who discovered his music later.
Mike's last ever live performance was the biggest of his career and dates back to 2012.
I hadn't expected him to be performing as he hadn't performed live for some years since the Premiere of Tubular Bells III (which I attended - more on that in a future blog post). I hadn't intended to watch the majority of the event as I was down in Devon at the time, and was actually heading to see Leeds United playing a friendly against Torquay.
As we came back from the match, we had the radio on, and they were playing the music from the opening ceremony and I was surprised to hear them say Mike Oldfield's name....
I knew that Bob Digby, GA President was at the Opening Ceremony. He had been following the development of the Olympic Park for many years as it took shape - as an example of urban redevelopment. There were various changes to the area - I visited myself with John Widdowson and a school group from Suffolk who kindly invited me along. Bob's never said how much he paid for his ticket...
There aren't many decent videos of the performance as they are copyrighted due to the Olympics' fairly stringent rules.
The audio is here however, and has been released in various formats since 2012:
Mike has made numerous varied albums in his career. I will be blogging separately about quite a few of them as they all had an impact on me in different ways.
He was also an innovator in the early days of computer games and video graphics - buying the most powerful graphics computers available and spending hours making videos for his own music. They look dated today, but then so do most things from back in the 1980s.
Check out 'The Wind Chimes' from 1987's album 'Islands'. Plenty of 3D objects floating about for no good reason... the music is great though, and was a rare side-long piece of music by then. This sounds great on a decent sound system for the bass. Like 'Discovery and the Lake' it was recorded in the French Alps.
If you want to know more about Mike's life and career, you need to visit the Dark Star website. I used to receive Dark Star magazine when it first started.
I'll also blog separately about the times I saw him live...
What is your favourite Mike Oldfield album?
Did you see him play live?
Let me know in the comments, and keep an eye out for more Oldfield related posts.
One of the greatest albums of all time, and still the bestselling solo jazz album – and the bestselling solo piano album – of all time, selling more than 4 million copies to date - I have one of them.
There will be a few posts which will be posted on the anniversaries of particular events and this is one of them.
The story behind its creation is also fascinating. It very nearly didn't happen, and the piano it was recorded on had some serious problems which Jarrett overcame, and which contribute to the unusual sound and arrangements on the album. He was exhausted and hungry when he performed.
I visited the venue where it was recorded in 2024 when I was in Köln for an educational event.
The city has connections with other bands including Kraftwerk - we will return to them later in the year...
A documentary has been made about the circumstances under which this piece was recorded. The trailer for it is here. I would like to go and see the finished film if possible.
