On The Road Again: Carl Palmer

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sábado, 7 de junio de 2025

Mike Oldfield "Five Miles Out (2013 Reissue, Remastered, Unofficial Release, Russia, Mercury Records, 374 043-8)"

Five Miles Out is the seventh studio album by English recording artist Mike Oldfield, released on 19 March 1982 by Virgin Records in the UK. After touring in support of his previous album, QE2 (1980), ended in mid-1981, Oldfield started on a follow-up with members of his touring band performing the music. The album features the 24-minute track "Taurus II" on side one and four shorter songs on side two. The songs "Family Man" and "Orabidoo" are credited to Oldfield and members of his touring band which included vocalist Maggie Reilly, drummer Morris Pert, and guitarist Rick Fenn.

Five Miles Out marked the beginning of a commercially successful period for Oldfield who scored his first UK top 10 album in seven years, peaking at No. 7. Two of the album's shorter songs, "Five Miles Out" and "Family Man", were released as singles which peaked at Nos. 43 and 45 in the UK, respectively. The latter became a bigger hit when pop duo Hall and Oates recorded a cover of the song. Five Miles Out was further promoted with the 100-date Five Miles Out World Tour 1982, the largest tour of Oldfield's career. It was reissued in 2013 with new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes and previously unreleased material.

In August 1981, Oldfield completed his European Adventure Tour 1981 which was staged in support of his previous studio album, QE2 (1980). The tour saw Oldfield perform with a group consisting of drummers/percussionists Mike Frye and Morris Pert, guitarist/bassist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tim Cross, and vocalist Maggie Reilly. In the month following the tour, Oldfield started work on a follow-up at Tilehouse Studios, his home recording studio in Denham, Buckinghamshire. Recording took place between September 1981 and January 1982 with an Ampex ATR-124 24-track machine. The music was performed by Oldfield and his six-piece band with Graham Broad on additional drums.

"Taurus II" occupies the entire first side of the album. At 24 minutes in length, it features a variety of melodies and instrumental settings. It features many familiar sounds from his earlier albums, such as uilleann pipes and female chorus, and extensive use of the Fairlight CMI. The vocal section, called "The Deep Deep Sound", features themes from "Taurus I" from QE2. The main theme from "Taurus I" is referenced once more in the following section. Oldfield's 1981 track "Royal Wedding Anthem", written and performed for the Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer, also has similarities to "Taurus II".

"Family Man" is a rock song that is credited to Oldfield, Cross, Fenn, Frye, Reilly, and Pert. The main guitar riff was devised by Fenn, from which Oldfield wrote the chorus and Reilly the verses with assistance from Cross. Hall & Oates covered the song in 1982 for their album H2O, with their version reaching No. 6 on the US pop charts and No. 15 in the UK. It thus became one of the very few songs penned by Oldfield to chart in the United States.

"Orabidoo" is the second track credited to the group. It features vocals from Oldfield and Reilly through the use of a vocoder. The track opens with the theme to "Conflict" from QE2 and closes with Reilly singing three verses about "Ireland's Eye" accompanied by acoustic guitar. A sample from the Alfred Hitchcock film Young and Innocent (1937) is heard, specifically the moment where the conductor of a dance band criticises the drummer: "Don't come in again like that. It isn't funny and I pay someone else to make the orchestrations!"

"Mount Teidi" is an instrumental named after Mount Teide on Tenerife, Canary Islands and features drummer Carl Palmer. Oldfield recalled that some of the music was originally scribed on a sheet of cigarette rolling paper so that he would not forget the idea.

"Five Miles Out" features vocals from Reilly and Oldfield, who sings through a vocoder. It was inspired by a near fatal flight that Oldfield had experienced from Barcelona to San Sebastián, where the inexperienced pilot received an incorrect weather forecast and flew through a thunderstorm. When it came to writing the lyrics, Oldfield visited a local pub, "lined up a few pints of Guinness", and wrote the words using a rhyming dictionary with the aeronautical terms he could think of as a basis. The song features the same guitar riff that appears at the beginning of "Taurus II".

The cover features a Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft, with similar markings to the one flown by Amelia Earhart in 1937. This is often mistaken for a Beechcraft Model 18 (a very similar aircraft) and is referred to in the lyrics of "Five Miles Out"; "lost in static, 18" and "automatic, 18". The aeroplane has registration G-MOVJ, as also referenced in the lyrics (as "Golf Mike Oscar Victor Juliet"). The airplane that Oldfield owned at that time was, instead, a Piper PA-31 Navajo.

The inner liner notes (originally the inner gatefold of the vinyl sleeve) feature the track sheet for "Taurus II", with the lyrics of "Five Miles Out" embedded within. The track sheet shows the layout of instruments on the 24 track tape.

Five Miles Out, the album, was more popular than Oldfield's previous few releases. It charted at No. 7 in the UK, whereas both QE2 (1980) and Platinum (1979) had failed to reach the top twenty. Oldfield's commercial revival would continue with subsequent albums Crises (1983) and Discovery (1984). In Canada, the album reached No. 29 on the top 50 albums list on 2 separate occasion in May and June, then made a brief re-appearance at No. 72 in October's new top 100 album chart.

The Five Miles Out World Tour 1982 was staged to promote the album.

In September 2013, the album was reissued as a single CD, vinyl, and a special 2 CD and DVD Deluxe Edition with a new remaster by Oldfield. The Deluxe Edition contains additional videos, live tracks from the 1982 tour, and a 5.1 surround sound mix. The reissue reached No. 48 in Germany.

Track listing

"Taurus II" Mike Oldfield 24:43
"Family Man" Oldfield, Tim Cross, Rick Fenn, Mike Frye, Maggie Reilly, Morris Pert 3:45
"Orabidoo" Oldfield, Cross, Fenn, Frye, Reilly, Pert 13:03
"Mount Teidi" Oldfield 4:10
"Five Miles Out" Oldfield 4:16
"Waldberg (The Peak)" (B-side Of Single) Mike Oldfield 3:28
"Five Miles Out (Demo Version)" Mike Oldfield 4:11

Recording infromation:

Mike Oldfield – producer, engineer

Tom Newman – producer and engineer on "Five Miles Out"

Richard Mainwaring – engineer on "Mount Teidi"

Richard Barrie – technical assistant

Fin Costello – photographer

Gerald Coulson – cover artwork

Pirate Russian version, which claims to be 'Made in the EU' on back cover.

CD picture side looks blurred, the text is not contrast.

Packaged in a jewel case with clear tray and 4-page booklet.

From back cover:

Track 6:

Released as August 1982

Track 7:

Previously unreleased

viernes, 23 de febrero de 2024

Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Tarkus (2012 RM Deluxe, 2CD+DVD-A, Sony 88691937962, EU)"

Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 14 June 1971 on Island Records. Following their debut tour across Europe during the second half of 1970, the group paused touring commitments in January 1971 to record a new album at Advision Studios in London. Greg Lake produced the album with Eddy Offord as engineer.

Side one features the 20-minute conceptual title track written by keyboardist Keith Emerson, the opening of which created friction between Lake and himself that almost split the group, but Lake agreed to pursue it and contributed musical ideas for it and wrote the lyrics. Side two features a collection of unrelated tracks of different styles. The artwork was designed by William Neal.

Tarkus went to number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the only album by the band to do so. It was a top 10 album worldwide, including the US, where it peaked at number 9. The album reached gold certification in the UK and US, the latter for 500,000 copies sold. It has been reissued and remastered several times, including a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound edition by Steven Wilson, with bonus and previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, released in 2012.

After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and drummer Carl Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practise drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on Tarkus. The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.

The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration. Although Lake thought the opening was "too demonstrative" for the sake of being clever, he did not want to split the group over such an issue and got into the album as recording went on. The band could only work out "Tarkus" during the January 1971 studio sessions, so they booked further time at Adivsion in February to work on side two, for which they had no material prepared.

Side one is occupied by the 20-minute title track which has seven sections. It was written by Emerson, with Lake credited for "Battlefield" and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo tank hybrid who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He added that the songs concern "the hypocrisy of it all" and the closing march "a joke".

Emerson wrote the first musical ideas for "Tarkus" from a 10/8 rhythm that Palmer had played on his practice drum pad backstage at a gig. He composed the entire piece in six days on his upright piano at his London apartment, and wrote the score on manuscript. After the band rehearsed it for six days, they put it to tape; Emerson said once Lake and Palmer had mastered the 5/4 and 10/8 rhythms, "everything else flowed." Emerson transposed "a fleeting run of one bar" from the Allegro of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 to bridge a transition between two parts of "Eruption". The section is played in a 5/4 time signature which was a "frustrating" meter for Lake to play. Emerson wanted the "Aquatarkus" section to have a sound that resembled a snorkel tube as he was into scuba diving at the time, so he generated one from his Moog synthesizer and played it during the marching beat. The group would not record a longer track in the studio until 1973, with the 29-minute "Karn Evil 9".

Side two features six songs unrelated to the conceptual title track. "Jeremy Bender" is a rendition of the Stephen Foster song "Oh! Susanna" and Emerson's performance was influenced by Floyd Cramer, one of his favourite pianists. It came about when Emerson was playing the song's chord progressions on a honky-tonk piano and incorporated some fifth-root chords, which the band liked. The closing features handclaps from Emerson and Palmer. "Bitches Crystal" originated from the idea of playing a boogie-woogie part in a 6/8 time signature, with Emerson naming Dave Brubeck's "Countdown" as an influence to his playing on it. The band had a firm idea on the direction of the track early on, although some parts were difficult for the group to put down. Lake was not a fan of Brubeck as Emerson was, but Palmer was into Brubeck's drummer Joe Morello and Emerson noticed his style of drumming in Palmer's performance.

"The Only Way (Hymn)" contains themes from Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540 and Prelude and Fugue VI, BWV 851 by Bach, and features Emerson on the pipe organ at St Mark's church in Finchley, north London which was put down using a mobile recording facility. Lake wrote the lyrics after the music was recorded; Emerson and Palmer considered the religious implication in the line: "Can you believe God makes you breathe, why did he lose six million Jews?" was a bit too strong, but they went along with it. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" features Emerson playing a 7-ft Bechstein grand piano, and came about from the band's decision to follow the profound lyrics on "The Only Way" with a laid-back piece.

Emerson said Led Zeppelin were a loose inspiration for "A Time and a Place", and was listening to the band a lot at the time. He recalled the track being put down in about three takes. Although not credited, the music to "Are You Ready, Eddy?" was largely inspired by Bobby Troup's 1956 song "The Girl Can't Help It". Its title was a phrase the band yelled out to Offord when they were ready to record. Palmer is heard saying "They've only go' 'am or cheese!", which is what an elderly lady at Advision said to the band when they sent her round to a nearby sandwich shop and announce what they had available. Emerson said Palmer could mimic her mix of Greek and cockney accents "wonderfully", and recalled the confusion from some American fans who could not understand what it was about. The track was "an impromptu jam" and a one-off take, and played in celebration of completing work on Tarkus.

One track left as an outtake was Lake's "Oh My Father", an autobiographical ballad dealing with grief over the recent death of his father. Featuring layers of acoustic guitars, piano, and a wah-wah guitar solo it might have balanced the keyboard-heavy tracks on the album but Lake ultimately thought it was too personal for release; it was eventually included on the 2012 deluxe reissue. Another outtake unearthed for the reissue, "Unknown Ballad", was a song actually titled "Just A Dream" recorded during the sessions when Emerson and Palmer were out of the studio, featuring Lake on piano and his friend Gary Margetts (of the group Spontaneous Combustion) on lead vocal, with brother Tris Margetts on bass and Lake helping out on backing harmonies.

The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve and features artwork by Scottish artist William Neal, whose armadillo has since became an iconic image in progressive rock. Neal was involved with the London-based CCS Associates which typically produced art for reggae albums but occasionally they were given other records to work on, which was the case with Tarkus. When the band rejected the designs already completed, Neal recalled: "On one of my drawings, there was a small doodle at the bottom of the page. This was of an armadillo with tank tracks on it but it was just an idea that wasn't really going anywhere." It originated from one of Neal's initial designs of a machine gun with a belt of bullets replaced by a row of keyboard keys, which he inadvertently sketched on with a pencil during a phone conversation which produced the tank image. Emerson liked it and suggested it be developed "into more of a cartoon story", as by which point he had written "Tarkus" and thought the music fit with the imagery. Neal was given a copy of the album to listen to while he completed the final cover, which inspired the other drawings. The gatefold presents eleven panels that illustrate the events of the title track, beginning with an erupting volcano, below which Tarkus emerges from an egg. Tarkus then faces a number of cybernetic creatures, culminating in the battle against the manticore which stings Tarkus's eye, and Tarkus retreats bleeding into a river.

Emerson went away with Neal's designs and began to think of album titles. "To everyone, it represented what we were doing in that studio. The next day on my drive up from Sussex the imagery of the armadillo kept hitting me. It had to have a name. Something guttural. It had to begin with the letter 'T' and end with a flourish". Emerson acknowledged that Tarka of Tarka the Otter may have been an inspiration, "but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation", at which point he came up with "Tarkus". The "Tarkus" on the front cover is made from whitened bones from the skeleton of a devoured lizard.

Tarkus was released on 14 June 1971 in the UK on Island Records, appearing two months later in the US by Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cotillion Records. It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to No. 9 (Trilogy, the following year, got to No. 5), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. Additionally, Tarkus spent a total of 17 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.

Tarkus was certified gold in the United States shortly after its release on 26 August 1971.

Track listing

Original vinyl

All lyrics are written by Greg Lake

Side one

1. "Tarkus" Keith Emerson, Greg Lake 20:59