I love it. You should too. Here’s the beginning:



Best recording was made in 2007 by Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble. Find it.

a great piece of music,
this and Electric Counterpoint are my favourites

This is quite dream like. It's definitely music that fills a room in subtle ways without overpowering it. I love the atmosphere it creates.

whirlygirl, on 08 January 2011 - 09:02 PM, said:

Yeah that's a great album. I highly recommand the "Drumming" album & specially the part IV. I found a copy of it on vynil three years ago it was so nice to listen. The part Iv is a chems track. Progressive, mental.

I was meaning to check Steve Reich for a long time... So now I know where to start from. Thanks

Ben Glass, on 08 January 2011 - 07:41 PM, said:

I do love that, but for me my heart lays with Philip Glass:



The album BLOWS MY MIND MAN. In fact I kept meaning to make a Koyaanisqutsi thread but never got round to it.

Hey guys, so you should hear this if you never did:




or the original version also:




This is one of my favourite album ever.

@pnx

This is the one I actually like the most from him:

Kosek, on 11 January 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

It was also for me the favourite for long time...
Now you can also find two different versions of Tubular Bells (first recording):

- Tubular Bells 2003, where Mike played again each instrument creating a completly new recording
- Tubual Bells (out on June 2009), newly mastered and mixed re-issue of the original album

You can appreciate better the quality of this wonderful album!

pnx, on 11 January 2011 - 09:06 PM, said:

The 2009 remaster and remixed version of the original is definitely the definitive version of Tuber Bells I think. I actually never thought much of Mike Oldfield's 2003 complete re-recording. It really lacked the energy and rawness of the original. Part of Tubular Bells' magic is that for such a famously chilled out album its actually really powerful and emotionally fractured. Tubular Bells 2 I never really got into. It says a lot that now it sounds curiously dated where as the original is still really timeless, like all great rock I guess.

Its good to know there's fans of Tubular Bells here on the Chems forum. I actually really like all Mike Oldfield's early work but his later 1990 album Amarok is definitely his best. Its a truly remarkable piece of music.

One of the many things I've always loved about the Chems is that there's definitely very obvious elements of the really good early 70's experimental prog sound in what they do. Tracks like Sunshine Underground and The Private Psychedelic Reel are obvious examples but there's definitely a very noticeable element of it in lots of other tracks too. A real melodic richness and warmth of atmosphere that takes you on a musical journey very much like Tubular Bells does and like lots of other music from that era. Just because the Chems put a big beat in doesn't actually make it any different to my mind. The energy level is different but the musical journey is the same.

The point of the Chems' music is that they use old machines so that their tracks could have been made in the 70's.

Toby, on 12 January 2011 - 12:17 AM, said:

I perfectly agree with you on everything you said!

And talking about the 70's... (since we really went "off-topic" now) What about Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother ?


What an EPIC piece of music! I really LOVE it!

Interesting observations, Toby. I have not much more to add really but I like how you presented the Tubular Bells as being emotionally fractured, and that is so true.

And I like how you tied that into the Chems and how the atmospheres their songs have created transport you on a musical journey. It goes to show it's not always about how something sounds, or what's added to it - but how something makes you feel.

whirlygirl, on 12 January 2011 - 05:00 PM, said:

How right you are Whirly...

Yesterday I discovered that another two masterpieces have been re-issued and re-played by Mike Oldfield in 2010,
Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn.
I'm listening them right now, and... they're simply BEAUTIFUL !!!

I was recently relistening those ones:

"Platinum"





Songs of Distant Earth




Still great! I was not listening to those for like 10 years.

Kosek, on 19 January 2011 - 11:01 PM, said:

"QE2" is also great, and similar to "Platinum".

From recent albums, I would recommend "Music of the spheres", the REAL Tubular Bells "3"

http://soundcloud.co...eme-1000-slower