Tubular Bells II

Untitled

Tubular Bells II is the 15th music album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1992. The album - the first for his new record label, Warner Bros. Records, following an acrimonious departure from Virgin Records after twenty years - was concepted as a sequel to Oldfield's 1973 Tubular Bells.

Live concerts

The album was premiered with a live performance at Edinburgh Castle on 4 September 1992 (see Tubular Bells II Live). The North American premiere was held at Carnegie Hall in New York on 1 March 1993; a world tour then followed. Following this Oldfield did not play live for nearly five years, until the premiere of Tubular Bells III in 1998 and then his Then & Now tour in 1999.

Master of Ceremonies

The introduction of the instruments at the end of the first half of the album was done by British actor Alan Rickman, though he was only listed in the credits as "a strolling player". The Master of Ceremonies at the premiere concert in Edinburgh was John Gordon Sinclair.

On alternate mixes of "The Bell" released as single b-sides, Billy Connolly and Vivian Stanshall (the voice in the original Tubular Bells) each played the Master of Ceremonies. On two alternate language b-sides of "The Bell", MC Otto and MC Carlos Finally played the Master of Ceremonies in German and Spanish respectively.

Tubular Bells comparisons

Tubular Bells II partly follows musical structures of the original Tubular Bells (1973). Themes of the original Bells are taken and then completely re-composed and played with mostly new instruments. The result is an album that has same kind of thematic variation but is still new musically. Some themes can be seen as variations of themes taken from the original Bells, while some other parts of Tubular Bells II do not have much common with the themes of the original album except their overall mood or feeling.

Unlike Tubular Bells there is a recurring theme, first appearing at the end of "Sentinel" that reappears throughout the album, though it is most obvious at the end of "The Bell".

Album development

Virgin Records had been pushing Oldfield to create a sequel to Tubular Bells for many years previous to his departure from the label, however Oldfield was hesitant to do so. The founder of Virgin, Richard Branson wanted to call the album that would become Amarok, Tubular Bells II, however Oldfield declined again. Some of the ideas going into the creation of Amarok were actually to create a sequel, but for Ommadawn not Tubular Bells; even though the work produced ended up being rather different from Ommadawn.

Along with Oldfield and one of the producers from the original Tubular Bells, Tom Newman, another producer, Trevor Horn] was brought in to work on Tubular Bells II. "Early Stages" which is an early version of what would become "Sentinel" was included as a b-side to the single version of "Sentinel". "Early Stages" has a somewhat darker mood and is from the pre-Trevor Horn development of the album, possibly showing the kind of influence that Horn had.

Track listing

1. "Sentinel" (Mike Oldfield) – 8:07
2. "Dark Star" (Oldfield) – 2:16
3. "Clear Light" (Oldfield) – 5:48
4. "Blue Saloon" (Oldfield) – 2:59
5. "Sunjammer" (Oldfield) – 2:32
6. "Red Dawn" (Oldfield) – 1:50
7. "The Bell" (Oldfield) – 6:59
8. "Weightless" (Oldfield) – 5:43
9. "The Great Plain" (Oldfield) – 4:47
10. "Sunset Door" (Oldfield) – 2:23
11. "Tattoo" (Oldfield) – 4:15
12. "Altered State" (Oldfield) – 5:12
13. "Maya Gold" (Oldfield) – 4:01
14. "Moonshine" (Oldfield) – 1:42

(Total track time 58:34)

Track titles

Some of the track titles for the album were taken from Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, including "The Sentinel" and "Sunjammer". Other track titles could just be references to science-fiction or space in general; dark star and weightless for example. Dark Star is also a title of a sci-fi film by John Carpenter which was released in the same year as the original Tubular Bells, 1973.

Oldfield has occasionally called some of the tracks on the album by different names in interviews, such as once when he performed "Red Dawn" on BBC Radio he called it "Russian". The title "Russian" was also later given to the equivalent piece on the re-recorded version of the original Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells 2003.

Personnel

• Mike Oldfield – acoustic guitars, banjo, classical guitar, electric guitar, Flamenco guitar, glockenspiel, Hammond organ, mandolin, percussion, piano, synthesisers, timpani, twelve-string guitar, vocals and of course, tubular bells
• A Strolling Player (Alan Rickman) – Master of Ceremonies
• Sally Bradshaw – vocals
• Celtic Bevy Band – bagpipes
• Eric Cadieux – programming and digital sounds
• Edie Lehman – vocals
• Susannah Melvoin – vocals
• Jamie Muhoberac – keyboards, special effects
• P.D. Scots Pipe Band (actually pipers from the New York Police Department) – bagpipes
• John Robinson – percussion

Instruments

Instruments on the album include, among others: (not a complete list)

• Fender Stratocaster guitar (pink)
• PRS Custom Artist (amber)
• Korg M1 synthesizer
• Ensoniq SD1 synthesizer
• Kurzweil K2000 synthesizer
• Premier tubular bells

Album artwork

Tubular Bells II again uses the bent metallic tube (representing a bent tubular bell) as the focus of the album artwork. The bell is a golden colour on a dark blue background as opposed to Tubular Bells' grey/silver bell on top of a sea/skyscape. Both the photos for Tubular Bells and Tubular Bells II were produced by Trevor Key. The cover design was by Bill Smith Studio.

External links

• Mike Oldfield Discography - Tubular Bells II at Tubular.net