''Hergest Ridge'' is the second studio album by English musician and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released on 28 August 1974 by Virgin Records. The unexpected commercial and critical success of his debut album '' Tubular Bells'' (1973) affected Oldfield, who decided against touring and avoided the press with his newfound fame. Instead, he retreated to Hergest Ridge on the England–Wales border and wrote the follow-up, which he recorded in 1974 at The Manor in Oxfordshire, with Tom Newman returning as co-producer. Similar to Oldfield's first, the album is a single composition split into two parts covering different moods and musical styles. The album was No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for three consecutive weeks before it was displaced by ''Tubular Bells'', marking one of the few times an artist has overtaken themselves on the chart in this manner. In 2010, the album was reissued with new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes, bonus material, and new artwork.

Background and recording

After the release of his debut album '' Tubular Bells'', Oldfield sought a countryside location to write a follow-up album. In early 1974 he drove around the West Country before turning north into Herefordshire. He arrived at Kington, a small town on the England–Wales border located in the shadow of Hergest Ridge, an elongated hill with a peak height of which attracted Oldfield to stay in the area. He spotted a house named The Beacon on the edge of Bradnor Hill that was for sale and received permission from Virgin Records co-owner

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

to buy it. Oldfield settled into his new home but felt unsure of his next career move. His contract with Virgin allowed him a £25 wage and continual offers added to the pressure of appearing in public, causing Oldfield to suffer from panic attacks. He lacked any solid ideas for new music and chose to perform simple undemanding Medieval tunes with folk musician

Les Penning Les Penning is a British folk musician and composer, best known for his work with Mike Oldfield on the album ''Ommadawn'' and several of Oldfield's singles. He is credited with introducing Oldfield to medieval music through their time playing to ...

at Penrhos Court, a local restaurant, in return for free wine. With encouragement from Branson, Oldfield started to write a follow-up to ''Tubular Bells'' following the delivery of a Farfisa organ, 4-track TEAC tape machine, and a mixing desk to his house. Oldfield felt that half of the good sections on the album were so detailed and buried in the mix, it called for listeners to play the album on a high quality record player. He stated, "I have to listen really hard to pick out something that I know that I'm proud that I did". The climax to the album is something that he was particularly happy with. Comparisons of the album to ''Tubular Bells'' irritated him because he considered it a more arranged and fully conceived work. In 1975, Oldfield reflected on ''Hergest Ridge'' and thought it contained "some excellent ideas" but its recording was rushed, which affected the performance. After initial recording sessions at

Basing Street Studios Basing Street Studios was a recording studio in a former 17th century chapel at 8–10 Basing Street, in Notting Hill, London, England. Originally established in 1969 as Island Studios by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, the studi ...

, London and

Chipping Norton Studios Chipping Norton Recording Studios was a residential recording studio in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, which operated from 1971 until October 1999. The studios were created by Mike and Richard Vernon as the in-house studio for Mike Ver ...

, Oxfordshire were abandoned, Oldfield recorded ''Hergest Ridge'' in the spring of 1974 at The Manor near Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire, with Tom Newman resuming his role as co-producer with Oldfield. The album was mixed at AIR Studios on London's Oxford Street.

Music

Similarly to ''Tubular Bells'', the album is divided into two movements. Oldfield frequently superimposes layers of electric guitar recorded by first amplifying heavily (to achieve a sustained organ-like quality) and then reducing the volume greatly via use of the Glorfindel Box (a custom guitar effects unit housed in

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, which was extremely unreliable in its operation; the unit was obtained from David Bedford, who had been given the box at a party by its creator.) The volume was reduced further using the compression channel from the Manor's mixing console, as had been done on ''Tubular Bells'' Part 2. Textures are extended further using various organ timbres and the use of voice as an instrument (the voice is never treated prominently and is deliberately reduced as much as possible and thus permitted largely for textural effect).

Versions

''Hergest Ridge'' was remixed in SQ system 4-channel

quadraphonic sound Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for th ...

by Oldfield in 1976 for the 4-LP set, ''

Boxed Boxed may refer to: * Boxed.com, a wholesale on-line shopping site. * ''Boxed'' (Eurythmics), an eight album box set * ''Boxed'' (Mike Oldfield album) * Boxed warning In the United States, a boxed warning (sometimes "black box warning", colloq ...

''. Following the creation of the remix, Oldfield stated that he wished for all future releases of the album to be derived from this new version. All CD releases have a stereo mix derived from the ''Boxed'' mix, as do most of the later pressings of LP and cassette. The original 1974 vinyl mix is now available on the 2010 reissue of the album, along with a 2010 remix. An orchestral version of ''Hergest Ridge'' was arranged and conducted by David Bedford, who had previously undertaken the same tasks on '' The Orchestral Tubular Bells''. It was performed live a number of times, and recorded for radio broadcast from concert performances twice, once in 1974 by the

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, that performs and produces primarily classic works. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable ...

with

Steve Hillage Stephen Simpson Hillage (born 2 August 1951) is an English musician, best known as a guitarist. He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s. Besides his solo sound recording and reprodu ...

on guitar, and once in 1976 by the Scottish National Orchestra, again with Hillage on guitar. Andy Summers played on other performances that year. Parts of its performances were used in the NASA and Tony Palmer documentary ''

The Space Movie ''The Space Movie'' is a documentary film produced in 1979 by Tony Palmer at the request of NASA, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the ''Apollo 11'' Moon landing. The 78 minute film was released theatrically in 1980, on VHS in 1983 and on ...

''. it has not been officially released.

Reception

Paul Stump commented on ''Hergest Ridge'' in his 1997 ''History of Progressive Rock'': "So how to follow ''Tubular Bells''? Simple. Merely repeat its developmental techniques through new (but less inspired) sequences of tunes."

Hergest Ridge, the place

Hergest Ridge on the England–Wales border is a popular holiday destination for Oldfield's fans, and the house where he lived at the time, The Beacon, is now a guest house. The cover photograph features scenery from Hergest Ridge, and was taken by

Trevor Key Trevor ( Trefor in the Welsh language) is a common given name or surname of Welsh origin. It is an habitational name, deriving from the Welsh ''tre(f)'', meaning "homestead", or "settlement" and ''fawr'', meaning "large, big". The Cornish lan ...

; the Irish Wolfhound on the cover (and on the LP label) was named Bootleg. Mike Oldfield himself can be heard pronouncing it in the song "On Horseback", which concludes "Part Two" of ''Ommadawn''. Although the album was written at The Beacon, it was, like ''Tubular Bells'', recorded at

's The Manor.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the 1974 liner notes. Musicians * Mike Oldfield – electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar, glockenspiel, sleigh bells, mandolin, nutcracker, timpani, gong, Spanish guitar, Farfisa organ, Lowrey organ, GEM Gemini organ *June Whiting – oboe * Lindsay Cooper – oboe *Ted Hobart – trumpet *Terry Oldfield – flute *Chilli Charles – snare drum * Clodagh Simonds – vocals * Sally Oldfield – vocals * David Bedford – choir and strings conductor Production *Mike Oldfield – production, engineering * Tom Newman – production and engineering assistant *

– album cover *Bootleg – Irish wolfhound on the album cover

HDCD remastered reissue

In 2000 Virgin re-released all of Oldfield's back catalogue, remastered in High Definition Compatible Digital, by Simon Heyworth at Chop 'em Out studios between March and April 2000, from the 1976 ''Boxed'' Quad mix. The album was re-released on 29 May 2000. HDCD is a patented process for delivering on CD the full richness and detail of the original microphone feed. Although a HDCD player is required to fully appreciate a HDCD recording, some improvement is still noticeable on normal CD players. The "lyrics" in Part 2, are more easily heard in the remix, although attempts to deciphering them have failed. It seems that they are an example of Clodagh Simonds' skill in inventing nonsense lyrics, which she did again on '' Ommadawn'', although for that album she also included some

Irish Gaelic Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the ...

words.

Mercury Records reissue

On 7 June 2010 the album was re-released by Mercury Records. This came as part of a deal in which Oldfield's Virgin albums were transferred to Universal's label. Bonus features for the release include a 2010 remix of the album and the original vinyl mix of the album. There is a single disc edition as well as a Deluxe Edition. Bonus tracks include " In Dulci Jubilo (For Maureen)" and "Spanish Tune". A 180 gram vinyl version was released as part of the Back to Black range. The reissue features radically different artwork, which features a

model glider A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models. Aircraft manufactur ...

and aerial photography based on

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

and Bluesky. According to the new liner notes, Oldfield was never entirely happy with the original album artwork and took this opportunity to commission a new cover. There is also a limited edition box set of the album, comprising a deluxe edition, an LP and a framed, signed print of the album artwork. Only 250 copies were produced, which were sold through Mike Oldfield's official website. There are no un-signed variants. The Japanese release uses the SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) manufacturing process.

Single disc edition

# "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) – 19:21 # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) – 18:46 # " In Dulci Jubilo (For Maureen)" – 2:46 # "Spanish Tune" – 3:11

Back to Black vinyl edition

# "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix)

Limited edition

Limited edition available through mikeoldfieldofficial.com, which contains the deluxe edition the vinyl edition and a numbered framed print of the cover artwork, signed by Mike Oldfield. Also includes ''Walking the Hergest Ridge'' booklet. Only 250 copies were available on pre-order prior to the release on 14 June 2010.

Digital edition

# "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 demo recordings) # "Hergest Ridge (Part Two)" (1974 demo recordings)

Deluxe edition

CD 1 # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) – 19:21 # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 stereo mix) – 18:46 # "In Dulci Jubilo (For Maureen)" – 2:46 # "Spanish Tune" – 3:11 CD 2 # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix) – 21:32 # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 stereo mix) – 18:40 # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 demo recordings) – 20:21 # "Hergest Ridge " (1974 demo recordings) – 18:13 DVD # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 5.1 surround mix) # "Hergest Ridge " (2010 5.1 surround mix)

Charts

''Hergest Ridge'' was the UK's number one album in the week ending 14 September 1974 and remained so for three weeks until being knocked out of the spot by its predecessor ''Tubular Bells''. Oldfield is thus one of only a few artists (among whom are The Beatles and Bob Dylan) to have swapped number one albums in this manner. In 1975, ''Rolling Stone'' reported that 2 million copies of the album had been sold.

Certifications and sales

References

External links

Mike Oldfield Discography – ''Hergest Ridge''
at Tubular.net
MikeOldfieldOfficial.com
*
''Hergest Ridge'' and ''Ommadawn'' at Universal's Mike Oldfield store
{{Authority control Mike Oldfield albums 1974 albums Instrumental albums Progressive rock albums by British artists Virgin Records albums Albums produced by Tom Newman (musician)