July 29, 2011

The Devil's Wind Chime

This is, perhaps, getting a little tedious. Or at least would be if there were anyone left here to be bored by it. Other than me -- and I'm immune. Anyway, it's another instrumental -- so much less effort, those, since I don't have to waste time striving in vain to disguise the hideousness of my voice.

The track name is a cheap gag based largely on a complete memory failure. Having probably not heard TB properly for decades, it had melded in my mind with other over-earnest tinkly 70s synth nonsense to become, basically, just a horror movie soundtrack. Churning out my own little satanic possession parody last night -- a couple of hours plus iTunes tag fiddling, honestly GarageBand remains fucking amazing -- drove me to listen again in full today. And all I can say is: God bless the generosity of forgetfulness. I had managed to repress completely just how much of Oldfield's magnum opus is gobsmackingly awful prog drivel. Can there be anyone who still seriously listens to this guff today? Christ, where are Emerson, Lake and Palmer when you need them?

Fuck it, I'm off to iTunes to buy a bunch of Yes and Hawkwind and Peter Gabriel dressed as a flower. And where's my copy of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds?

Tomorrow: social occasion of the year and another sad farewell. I'm rapidly running out of friends around here.

Tonight: those Wales photos won't edit themselves.

Yes, I know, I should be writing R code to calculate dwell time distributions. No, I'm not doing that. What can I say? I'm a bad person.

Posted by matt at July 29, 2011 10:49 PM

Rag on Tubular Bells as you see fit - but without the massive piles of cash it generated, it's possible that no other label would've taken a chance on bringing us such goodies as Real Life, Rock Bottom, Dare! or Never Mind The Bollocks. (Or Spiceworld.)

Posted by: robin at July 30, 2011 1:42 PM

Well absolutely. Wouldn't dream of trying to downplay it's importance commercially or even culturally. Just noting my reaction to hearing it afresh.

Posted by: matt at July 31, 2011 12:50 PM