LIGHT + SHADE

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Monday, January 23, 2006

Mike Oldfield has been creating some of the most interesting and challenging progressive rock for more than 30 years, since his stunning 1973 debut in with Tubular Bells. A quartet of revisitations of that seminal endeavor have sprinkled Oldfield's subsequent set list two dozen amazing recordings as the gifted composer and multi-instrumentalist journeyed through symphonic and progressive rock, to songs featuring a variety of vocalists, and back to his beginnings with an amazing reinvention of Tubular Bells reworked for modern digital recording for its 30th Anniversary in 2003.

His latest recording, not yet given a US release date but easily available as an import through amazon and other retailers, is a compelling and evocative double CD called Light + Shade, his debut release for Mercury records, his new label (after 33 years with Virgin and Warner). In many ways it harkens back to Tubular Bells immediate successor, the far underrated but mesmerizingly atmospheric Hergest Ridge. Light + Shade proceeds slowly but deliberately across a veiled territory for theme and variation, laced with fragile melodies, chilled ambiances, and stimulating musical fragrances. It doesn't rock out quite the way moments of Tubular Bells did but develops a persuasive ambiance and an eclectic textural environment that is pleasant and provocative. Like Hergest Ridge, Light + Shade is primarily melodic and minimalist, evoking feelings through a structure of layered textures, patterns, and developing repetitions that interlace and reveal new proportions in measure after measure. Musical collages that intermingle, reflect, face off, and scatter only to rebound in a continual integration of constantly developing pure sound, the album retains, like all of Mike's compositions, a continual forward motion and fresh instrumental nuances to be evoked with each new track, although all are well integrated into a cohesive unity, with Oldfield's solo guitar taking the dominant role throughout. But even his solos are quietly reflective, assimilating with the patterned synth tonalities that give them depth and breadth.

With two discs and a title like Light + Shade, it's not surprising to find that the first disc, Light, contains more ethereal and "lighter" compositions than Disc 2, Shade, which is somewhat edgier and moodier, more insistently rhythmic, an effective counterpoint to the chilled ambiances of Light. This disc is just as provocatively intriguing as the first CD, but progresses with a harder framework, a little more electronic looping, and a more dominant cadence to the tracks, yet maintaining the same kind of melodic design to the guitar solos and compositions ("Tears of an Angel" is a high point in this sense, with very thoughtful and melancholy guitar soloing in Oldfield's best form, over an underlying riff of processed voices and synth-percussion; "Romance" is a vividly up-tempo version of a Spanish melody over a fast-paced drum loop that is almost danceable). "Nightshade" closes the album out very nicely with a reflective resolution for guitar the same kind of repetitive riff found in "Tears of an Angel," which provides a cool denouement for the musical interactions that have gone before, settling the tempo down just a bit and echoing the chilled tonalities of Light as Shade faded out to black.

Both sides of Light + Shade are beautifully rendered, evoking achingly poignant melodies, introspective configurations, and thoughtful musical sensibilities throughout.

The UK edition includes two bonus tracks that won't appear on the US release when it comes out, one at the end of each disc, "Pres De Trois," an alternate version of the hymn melody that embodies the track "Closer" on disc one, and a quirky rendition of Delibes' "Lakme" (remember the love scene from THE HUNGER? Replace the chorale voiocings with Oldfield's guitar, and replace Susan Sarandon and on disc two.

www.mikeoldfield.org