BBC Four will broadcast a 1974 live studio performance of Tubular Bells on Tuesday, 6 January at 20:30-21:00/8:30-9:00 PM (GMT). Click here for further information.

Thanks, Jonathan!

Thursday, 1 January 2009 20 comments

Mike Oldfield is one of the artists contributing to BBC Four Prog Rock Brittania on Jan 2 at 22:00, along with Robert Wyatt, Pete Sinfield, Rick Wakeman, Phil Collins, Arthur Brown, Carl Palmer and Ian Anderson. The documentary explores the life and decline of progressive music, the bands involved, and their musical style.

Monday, 29 December 2008 36 comments

Greetings, again!

There will be another Mike Oldfield Night in Second Life, this one coming up tomorrow, Monday, 8 December at 9PM GMT, which is 1PM SLT (Pacific Time).

If you've been thinking of trying out SL, this might be a great opportunity. You will already have fast friends and someplace to go. (-:  www.secondlife.com to get started. If you get inworld and need help, look for Morrighan Heron or Zanny Wirefly. It would be a good thing to spend some time on Orientation Island and Help Island, first. To find the Subterranea, click on Search (middle of your screen, bottom). Key in Subterranea in the search box. Make sure you have checkmarked the "mature content" box (even libraries are "mature content"--don't ask me why). Click on Subterranea, then there will be another screen, which will have a teleport option. Click on teleport, and away you'll go!

Hope to see you there!

Sunday, 7 December 2008 8 comments

Finnish multi-instrumentalist and composer Pekka Pohjola has passed away on November 27. Pekka played bass with Mike during the 1979 tour and is credited on Exposed. Mike produced and contributed to Pekka's album Keesojen Lehto - Mathematician's Air Display.

Kiittää te, Mika

Thursday, 27 November 2008 17 comments

With November 24th fast approaching, curiosity about the new Music of the Spheres 2 CD edition has been growing. Thanks to those nice people at Universal, we can now put an end to the speculation!

The set is packaged in a specially designed digipak, with spaces for the two CDs plus the booklet. Behind the two CDs is an enlarged version of the Music of the Spheres cover design. The booklet design is little changed from that the single CD edition, aside from some extra pages of credits for the live recording. We have a picture of the boxed set here.

The sound quality of the live CD is a definite improvement over the iTunes edition: full and warm, with much greater presence and detail. Fans of the studio album who haven't heard the live recording yet will definitely find it an interesting listen, those of you who have the iTunes edition already will appreciate the better sound quality of the CD and everyone should be able to appreciate the stylish packaging of this limited edition set!

It would of course make the perfect gift for anyone who's a fan of Mike, Lang Lang, Hayley Westenra or Karl Jenkins, but why wait for Santa to bring it when you can order your own copy at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com?

Thursday, 23 October 2008 21 comments

A 2 CD limited edition of Music of the Spheres will be released on November 24, containing the studio version and the live version recorded at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. Preorder it at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.

Update, Oct 19: view a high resolution version of the album artwork, courtesy of Universal, here. We're told it will be released in special packaging, making it perfect as a gift. Additionally, Music Week has reported that Music of the Spheres has been the 2nd biggest selling classical album this year; with Christmas just around the corner and a tasty stocking filler like this on the market, it can only be set to climb higher!

Grazie mile, mikeoldfield.it, tubular_trekkie, Universal Music and Chris Simmons.

Thursday, 2 October 2008 34 comments

Song For Survival, Mike Oldfield's track for Bruce Parry's Survival International charity project, has been digitally released on iTunes UK and Play.com as part of the Amazon album. You can also preorder it on Amazon.co.uk. The Amazon TV show starts on September 15 on BBC2.

Thanks, Molly!

Update: now available on international iTunes stores as well.

Update Oct 9: out in the shops on Oct 13. Molly also informs us that the Amazon TV show is pretty popular with an audience of 3 million people a week.

Monday, 15 September 2008 110 comments

Mike is selling more equipment via Chandler Guitars: Digidesign Pro Tools slave driver, Digidesign 888/24 8-track to 24-bit digital converter, Roland Fantom-XR synth module, Trace Elliot GP11 bass head, Yamaha OIV96 digital mixer, Yamaha Tyros 1 workstation keyboard.

Monday, 1 September 2008 26 comments

The Songs For Survival album accompanying BBC2 new TV series Bruce Parry's Amazon will feature an exclusive song by Mike Oldfield. The theme of the series is performed by Apparatjik composed of Guy Berryman (Coldplay), Magne Furuholmen (a-ha) and Jonas Bjerre (Mew). It starts on september 22.

Via mikeoldfieldblog.com under Tati The Sentinel's watch

Update Aug 25: according to the Kensaltown Records' tracklisting, Mike's track is : Mike Oldfield feat. the Anuta tribe - Song For Survival

Update Sep 14: Song For Survival is available at iTunes UK and Play.com which provides a sample.

Thursday, 21 August 2008 63 comments

30 years after his hit Rockollection, French pop star Laurent Voulzy covers a part of Moonlight Shadow in his last album Recollection, among other covers from The Police, Bananarama, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Bee Gees, REM, Michel Polnareff, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison, Supertramp, Talk Talk, etc. Moonlight Shadow appears the in track Jukebox and is sung by a female voice. Order at Amazon.fr, .co.uk, .com, .ca.

Merchi, Olier!

Saturday, 19 July 2008 14 comments

The Subterranea Progressive Rock Club of Second Life will feature an evening with Mike Oldfield's music on Friday, 27 June at 12:00PM SLT (Pacific Time; 8PM GMT). You can find the venue using the search feature once you're in SL (search "subterranea") ; or, ask Moog McMahon for a teleport. The last Mike Oldfield Night was very well attended!

Friday, 27 June 2008 6 comments

Warner is set to release a new 'sight & sound' CD + DVD set of Mike's Art in Heaven concert from 1999/2000.

The CD contains audio-only versions of all the tracks on the DVD, with the exception of the 'Art in Heaven' track, which isn't included. Some sources claim that the tracks on the CD will be in 5.1, though this would seem a strange choice as it would render it unplayable on systems without a Dolby/DTS decoder (i.e. most stereo systems).

The release is set for June 30th and you can pre order it from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.co.uk.

Dank je wel, Burning Fish.

Wednesday, 18 June 2008 24 comments

The California Guitar Trio has a cover of Tubular Bells on its latest album entitled Echoes. You can buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk. Other acoustic covers include Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird, Queen's Bohemian Rapshody, and Beethoven's Pastorale.

Thanks, Jordi.

Wednesday, 4 June 2008 6 comments

BBC broadcast journalist Daniel Garrett has informed us that BBC Radio Wiltshire has posted a 9 minute audio interview of Mike about his early success with Tubular Bells and the pressure from Richard Branson, inspiration, Music of the Spheres, spirituality, working with other people and then alone putting parts together, and lastly about taking a few years of rest and perhaps retiring.

Thursday, 15 May 2008 19 comments

While we're sure that all of Mike's fans will remember what's special about today, we want to keep in mind how Mike likes to use this site to remember what's going on in his life. So Mike, in case you're wondering what that big cake is for: it's your birthday today!

Many happy returns, Mike!

Wednesday, 14 May 2008 32 comments