Consuming the Tangible

Of course I knew Tubular Bells. Practically everyone knows Tubular Bells. Well, everyone knows the part that’s played as the primary theme to The Exorcist. They may or may not know it’s called “Tubular Bells”, or that The Exorcist only really uses the intro of the album, and that the rest is some pretty stunning progressive folk and rock, or that it was the debut of Mike Oldfield, recorded when he was only 19 years old. But those preceding sentences were ALL I knew about Oldfield, and I wanted to change that. Not knowing where to go I turned to the trusty internet, and the internet did respond. Buried beneath the fetid breath of the communal anarchy a single word escaped: Ommadawn. So be it. Into the Ommadawn we fly.

Divided into two sections, each occupying a side of the vinyl, “Ommadawn, Pt. 1” starts off with a pastoral touch, wordless chanting floating in a sea of acoustic guitars and synthesizers. The classical guitar is lovely, and it’s exciting to hear Oldfield, who was first a guitarist, play so beautifully. The intensity and anxiety of his prior classic’s sinister melody is nowhere to be found, unless it’s in the pulse of the bass notes acting as the timekeeper. With the explosion of a gong Oldfield switches to electric guitar, carving out a melodic solo that brings with it a more thrilling, cinematic symphony that echoes back and forth with electronics. It has a jauntiness to it, and on headphones sounds like a lush marvel, the very small pops and clicks of my battered vinyl adding to the layers of sounds (there are a ton of remixes and remasters, but I dons an original 1975 pressing for $6 at my local shop).

About six and a half minutes in the track changes tone again and we get the themes played on woodwinds. It’s wonderfully orchestrated, and listening again I come away awed that this 22-year old kid is crafting some incredible chamber music, finding beautiful counterpoints ands rhythms and arranging everything in a way that you could never do now with a major studio. Oldfield had convinced Virgin to build a small 24-track studio in The Beacon, a location near his home, and he basically built the entire album there. The tiny tips and taps of percussion whirl in the soundstage, and even when he rocks out with a killer solo, the song never succumbs to rock cliche. The closing moments of “Ommadawn, Pt. 1” feature loose, nonsensical vocals with African tribal drumming backing it, Oldfield’s keyboards sequenced in repeating patterns behind it. Everything comes together, arriving at a bold crescendo and making a terrific close to the side.

If Side A moved from pastoral to joyous pomp to rock, Side B and “Ommadawn, Pt. 2” takes on a more thoughtful approach in its tone. The melodic theme becomes a string drone, mournful as if the music had come out the other side of an adventure, victorious but at a cost that still pains. I’m again reminded at just how evocative Oldfield is here, unfettered and pushing through expectations of what the music could be. Again the acoustic guitar is placed perfectly in the mix, and as the music fades away to a single piano and the guitar joins in, it’s hard to imagine for me being able to construct music like this.

I think I keep coming back to that point because I have a habit of listening to music and often trying to put myself in it, either performing or recording it. Sure there are albums where I just sit back and listen, getting absorbed in the mood and feeling and – yes – just rocking out to tasty riffs. But with Ommadawn I’m awed. I fall in deep, and then start to actively listen to where everything sits, how the strings and synths mesh so beautifully with the pipes at the halfway point of “Ommadawn, Pt. 2” and it’s that moment where I lose sense and fall back in a reverie “Jesus Christ, this is gorgeous”. Others might disagree, but the integration of African and Irish music (there are jigs everywhere) work, finding easy complements in Oldfield’s symphonic progressive folk.

If there’s a fault at all with Ommadawn, it’s the “On Horseback” bit tacked to the end of “Ommadawn, Pt. 2”. A coda that reaches back to Oldfield’s time riding with his friends at Hergest Ridge (the inspiration for his second album), it’s a distraction, mixing spoken word and a nursery cadence against child-like flutterings and effects. The children’s choir reinforces this, and does the album as a whole no favors.

But that’s okay, because the rest of Ommadawn is fantastic, and there’s a clear end before the shenanigans where I can simply raise the stylus, flip the vinyl, and begin again.