Magnum opus

Hergest Ridge (50th Anniversary) UMC

Tubular what? Long overshadowed by its illustrious predecessor, Oldfield’s 1974 hymn to the British landscape gets the belated Golden Jubilee treatment – and it’s never sounded so brooding or beautiful.

Taking flight: Mike Oldfield prepares to launch his ...

Eleven years after his first ambitious homage to Mike Oldfield, Robert Reed is back with the long-awaited fourth instalment in his Sanctuary series. With a little help from Oldfield collaborators Les Penning, Tom Newman and drummer Simon Phillips, the Magenta and Cyan mastermind tells Prog about his mission to keep long-form music alive.

The instrument that featured on the cover of Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms is still very much in use.

shouting forever into the receiver Anne Denholm (harp), Louise McMonagle (cello), Jonathan Morton (violin) et al NMC NMC D285 61:56 mins Tackling social themes and reckoning with history is part of wh