TUBULAR BELLS by Mike Oldfield Half Speed Mastered Audi

$

39

I am parting with my 30 odd year old collection of audiophile records.  Most are direct to disc, half speed masters or the “chosen pressing’.  Unless otherwise noted, all unsealed records are near mint and appear un-played.  They have only been played by the very finest of cartridges, arms and players.

 Composer Mike Oldfield rose to fame on the success of Tubular Bells, an eerie, album-length conceptual piece employed to stunning effect in the film The Exorcist.

In addition to almost single-handedly establishing Virgin as one of the most important labels in the record industry, Tubular Bells also created a market for what would later be dubbed new age music, and won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 1974.

Mike Oldfield's groundbreaking album Tubular Bells is arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single unique piece. A variety of instruments are combined to create an excitable multitude of rhythms, tones, pitches, and harmonies that all fuse neatly into each other, resulting in an astounding plethora of music. Oldfield plays all the instruments himself, including such oddities as the Farfisa organ, the Lowrey organ, and the flageolet. The familiar eerie opening, made famous by its use in The Exorcist, starts the album off slowly, as each instrument acoustically wriggles its way into the current noise that is heard, until there is a grand unison of eccentric sounds that wildly excites the ears. Throughout the album, the tempos range from soft to intense to utterly surprising, making for some excellent musical culminations. Mandolins and Spanish guitars are joined by grinding organs and keyboards, while oddball bells and cranking noises resound in the distance. In the middle of the album, guest Vivian Stanshall announces each instrument seconds before it is heard, ending with the ominous sounding tubular bells, a truly powerful and dominating instrument. The most interesting and overwhelming aspect of this album is the fact that so many sounds are conjured up yet none go unnoticed, allowing the listener a gradual submergence into each unique portion of the music. Tubular Bells

(EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY MIKE DeGAGNE, ALL MUSIC GUIDE /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

The Columbia Records' Mastersound half-speed audiophile vinyl pressings of the late 1970's and early 1980's (there was only a handful of released titles) were not only audiophile masterpieces and connoisseur delights, they have become true pieces of audio history and its lore. These majestic recordings received an intense, meticulous and laborious treatment like very few other recordings in the entire history of the recorded sound. They are characterized by the massively extended dynamic and frequency range, mastering from the very first generation of original master tapes, almost compulsive attention paid to the detail and integrity of the pressing, the highest quality of the material and near-maniacal attention paid to the fine sonic detail and audio craftsmanship. To this day, many of these recordings remain unsurpassed, delivering music reproduction as close to the actual recording session as possible, without any loss of musical information inherent in the standard practice of mastering from the inferior "production" copies.

· THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. AUDIOPHILE PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

· ORIGINAL, THIN CARDBOARD COVER (NO THICK CARDBOARD COVERS WERE EVER PRODUCED FOR THIS TITLE)