Mike Oldfield - Hergest Ridge

Released - August 1974

Genre - New Age

Producer - Tom Newman & Mike Oldfield

Selected Personnel - Mike Oldfield (Guitar/Organ/Keyboards/Percussion/Mandolin); Lindsay Cooper (Oboe); Ted Hobart (Trumpet); Sally Oldfield (Vocals); Terry Oldfield (Woodwinds); Clodagh Simmonds (Vocals)

Standout Track - Hergest Ridge (Part I)

Mike Oldfield had plenty of reasons to be cheerful in 1974. His pioneering one-man-symphony Tubular Bells had quickly become one of the biggest-selling and most talked-about albums of the previous year, providing Richard Branson and Virign Records with the hit they needed to get the fledgling record company off the ground, thus giving them the impetus to become the huge business empire they would eventually grow into. Tubular Bells, with its complex symphonic structures, tapped into the prog-rock obsession with complexity and artistic ambition, and yet the music's eclectic styles and influences also captured the imaginations of those beginning to tire of prog's formula and looking for further ways to develop music in new directions. Not only that, but the use of the opening motif of Tubular Bells as the main theme to William Friedkin's hit film The Exorcist ensured it was a hit in the US too. But, in the huge media scrutiny that surrounded him in the wake of such a hit, Oldfield found little to take comfort in. He was a painfully shy and introverted individual (to the extent that it was only after several personal counselling sessions to raise his self-confidence later in the 70s that he was ever able to consider touring or performing live), and hated the sudden pressure to talk about his music and publicise it and answer questions about it, preferring to let it speak for itself. He was that rare thing in rock music, a hugely talented musician who did what he did not remotely for any of the ego-boosting or fame or repute it might get him, but purely because he loved creating music and pushing himself into new territories.

Virgin, understandably, were keen to push for an immediate follow-up, but Oldfield felt he had to address his own feelings of intimidation and insecurity first, and so retreated to his country home near the town of Kington on the Welsh border, near a hill named Hergest Ridge, to work on his next project. What emerged was an album which, while perhaps being inherently less groundbreaking or surprising as Tubular Bells, was far more mature, intelligent, heartfelt and beautiful than what had come before. The problem I've always had with Tubular Bells is that it feels more like a man trying out lots of different ideas and not being sure how to coalesce them all together - every one of them is compelling and imaginative and brilliant in its own way, but I find that, as an album, it slightly struggles to all come together. Oldfield would go a long way towards rectifying this with Hergest Ridge, the album he would eventually name in tribute to the countryside that helped to inform it.

That sense of peace and introversion and solitude bleeds through in every moment of Hergest Ridge - it's a more intensely personal work than Tubular Bells (ironically so considering that here Oldfield did actually delegate some of the instrumental work to musicians other than himself). But one can hear his desperation for solitude on this record, his need to be on his own and in control of his mood and his music rather than letting it be debated and picked over by consumers. The whole thing is far more stately and more placid, and the sheer feel of the countryside and its effect on Oldfield's psyche is powerfully audible, from the plaintive cor anglais melody halfway through Part I to the muted, textured vocal effects. Oldfield was keen to diversify and push in new directions in some areas, and in others to be more restrained and controlled. He incorporated a broader instrumental palette, including his brother Terry on woodwinds and sister Sally on vocals. He still wasn't keen to actually write vocal melodies, however, and the vocal parts are deliberately kept low in the mix so their effect is purely atmospheric rather than melodic, with his own electric guitar or Terry's woodwinds more often carrying the lead melody. But, while in terms of instrumentation he was allowing himself to be more ambitious, this time things are kept far more restrained in terms of the musical structure, with themes and melodies slowly layering on top of each other and rolling quietly and elegantly into the next passage rather than leaping abruptly into the next musical idea as on Tubular Bells.

On "Part I," the first twelve minutes or so are spent slowly building and layering a single melodic idea via the woodwind parts, while Oldfield's acoustic guitar and organ effects build up several layers of lush and gorgeous sonic architecture before a more up-tempo section is introduced that sounds almost threatening until the addition of sleigh bells shifts the music in a new, jauntier direction as the first half winds to a close with a fine electric guitar solo. "Part II," for me, has always been the less successful side of "Hergest Ridge," in that its aggressive mid-section has always felt totally out of place to me on the album. In general, Hergest Ridge feels particularly powerful and poignant for me because of its stateliness, calmness and sense of repose. Even in its more upbeat and faster-moving moments, its purpose, I feel, is to articulate the sense of peace and bliss gained from solitude, and then there's a thunderous, discordant mashing of layered electric guitars all screaming together which I find too tuneless and angry to even work that well as hard rock music - it's just a wall of noise that disrupts the mood of the album itself. Of course, this was almost certainly Oldfield's intention, perhaps trying to articulate his own sense of discomfort at how the media's intrusion had shattered his own sense of solitude while working on his music, or perhaps that's reading far too much into it. Either way, whether it's intended as a statement or not, it's a moment that breaks the spell of the album for me and that I never really enjoy sitting through.

That aside, though, Hergest Ridge is generally a perfect evocation of stillness and solitary peace, and a clear sign of Oldfield's maturation as a composer and musician. It's naturally less exciting a record than Tubular Bells, as by this point the general premise of Oldfield's one-man New Age symphonies was no longer surprising, but it's certainly, overall, an improvement over his earlier album and a big step towards the career peak that would come the following year with Ommadawn. Hergest Ridge, while not quite selling at the level that Tubular Bells did, was another big hit and reached the top of the album charts before being knocked off by Tubular Bells itself, which was still riding high even a year later.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Mike Oldfield.

1. Hergest Ridge (Part I)

2. Hergest Ridge (Part II)