I remember he said he didn't enjoy the experience Peter. In fact, he was fairly dismissive of the whole process. I'm an Oldfield fan as well but I've never owned this score, just some excerpts on various compilations of his. Must try to get a copy.
I remember he said he didn't enjoy the experience Peter. In fact, he was fairly dismissive of the whole process. I'm an Oldfield fan as well but I've never owned this score, just some excerpts on various compilations of his. Must try to get a copy.
That shouldn't be a problem. I see it going cheaply quite regularly.
I love the score. I remember reading an interview with Mario Nascimbene in Soundtrack Collectors Quarterly where he singled out Oldfield's score for praise as a "recent" film score he admired.
Oldfield often expresses thoughts and feeling in interviews which greatly depend on what sort of a mood he's in. Even as an Oldfield fanatic, I've learned to take most of his comments with a house-sized grain of salt.
Even the comment that he disliked the scoring experience doesn't hold up, as he's also gone on record as saying he did, in fact, enjoy the experience--particularly the chance to work with people who operate in a different field than his own. I think his negative opinions were regarding the nuts-and-bolts of scoring such as track-timing, abrupt editing changes and the like (the challenges of which are part and parcel for the typical movie composer, but not a first-timer like he was).
Hell, he's even spoken of hating the saxaphone! But what's that on "Froggy Went A-Courting"?
Whatever the trials and tribulations, his end result was just amazing. The underscore for the evacuation sequence alone is stunning.
Resurrecting this thread yet again, Mike Oldfield is continuing reissues of his catalogue with 'The Killing Fields' (and 'Discovery' and 'The 1984 Suite') early next year. 'The Killing Fields' is remastered and includes 2 bonus tracks...
I've been keeping up-to-date with Oldfield's reissue program, mainly for the B-sides and such. Taken collectively, they've been sort of hit-and-miss and the surround mixes are not a big deal to me.
I was really looking forward to these 2 but I'm a little underwhelmed with the bonus material, especially as the contemporaneous "Pictures In The Dark" tracks are still absent and there are still a couple of brief pieces missing from the TKF album that I hoped would finally be added where they belong. The "Etude" single edit is already available on almost every bloody compilation and the "Evacuation" single edit is on "The Complete Mike Oldfield" (in not-exactly-stellar sonics, but at least it's there). "Poison Arrows" is one of my all-time faves. I love it when his solos go absolutely mental--unreal dynamics on that track and I think Palmer was one of Oldfield best singers.
I wish Oldfield and/or Universal would just pull up their boots and give us all of the Virgin non-album material* in a proper standalone release already--with NO futzing or revisionism.
(* Oh, and all the single edits & extended edits too.)
Interestingly, even though I own quite a few Oldfield albums and like a lot of his music, I have not yet heard this score. I should check it out one day. (Should watch the movie too.)
Interestingly, even though I own quite a few Oldfield albums and like a lot of his music, I have not yet heard this score. I should check it out one day. (Should watch the movie too.)
I won't spoil it, its a very powerful movie it has heart breaking moments - this is not Oldfield's usual style Mike is a little more outgoing musically with his compilations barring Amarok. I love TKF a lot, great movie & score.
