Tubular Bells II

Album development

Virgin Records had been pushing Oldfield to create a sequel to Tubular Bells for many years prior to his departure from the label, but Oldfield was hesitant to do so, although his penultimate album for the label, Amarok, was in several respects a conceptual sequel to his 1975 album Ommadawn.

For Tubular Bells II Oldfield enlisted the help of Tom Newman, who had helped produce the original, as well as established producer Trevor Horn (known for his work with The Buggles, Yes and Art of Noise). "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.

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". Also unlike the original ending coda, "The Sailor's Hornpipe", "Moonshine" is an original composition by Oldfield.

In 1998 another sequel followed, Tubular Bells III, and in 2003 Oldfield recorded a new version of the original Tubular Bells, as Tubular Bells 2003.

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, although his role was credited merely to "a strolling player" because the voice had not been picked when the artwork was produced. The Master of Ceremonies at the premiere concert in Edinburgh was John Gordon Sinclair.

On alternative 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 alternative language B-sides of "The Bell", MC Otto and MC Carlos Finally played the Master of Ceremonies in German and Spanish respectively.

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, such as "Dark Star" and "Weightless". Dark Star is also the 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 2 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.

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.

Critical reception

Critical reception to the album was mixed, although the album reached number 1 in the album charts in a number of countries. Writing in Q magazine, Mat Snow described it as a "more consistent but less tune-happy musical sequence than TBI" and praised "producer Trevor Horn's fairy dust" as an advantage.

Live concerts

The album was premiered with a live performance on the esplanade at Edinburgh Castle on 4 September 1992 with John Gordon Sinclair as Master of Ceremonies. The North American premiere was held at Carnegie Hall in New York City on 1 March 1993; a world tour then followed. Following this Oldfield did not perform live in concert for nearly five years, until the premiere of Tubular Bells III in 1998 and then his Then & Now Tour in 1999.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Mike Oldfield.

Personnel

Instruments

Instruments on the album include, among others: