textura

Albums
Bayaka Pygmies
Maya Beiser
James Blackshaw
Caffeine Patrol
Call Super
Andrea Carri
Causa Sui
Matthew Collings
Philip Corner
Crandell & Timson
Gareth Dickson
Dryft
Jordan Dykstra
Roman Flügel
Future 3
Graveyard Tapes
Hildur Gudnadottir
Mary Halvorson
Hecq
Idlefon
Yuta Inoue
Jacaszek & Kwartludium
Franz Kirmann
Lachrylic
Machinone
Null
Ocoeur
Octet Ensemble
Oliveros/Rothenberg/Hill
Glen Porter
Gabriel Prokofiev
Rob Reed
Steve Roach
The Sticks
Tangent
Tapage
Taylor | Grosse
Transllusion
Weathers & Chrisman
yMusic
Yokotsuka Yuuya

Compilations / Mixes
Calyx & TeeBee
Deetron
Total 14

EPs / Cassettes / Mini-Albums / Singles
Blu Mar Ten
Break / Fields
Elika
William Ryan Fritch
Andy Vaz

Rob Reed: Sanctuary
Tigermoth Records

Homage or appropriation? Though each listener might respond slightly differently, there's one thing about which they'll all probably agree: Rob Reed's Sanctuary is so similar in style to Mike Oldfield's early output—specifically the albums from Tubular Bells to Incantations—that Sanctuary could easily pass for a pastiche of unused Oldfield out-takes from the ‘70s. In his defence, Reed comes by the homage honestly: captivated by Tubular Bells upon hearing it in 1973 at the age of seven, Reed harboured a life-long dream of producing something similar. Aside from vocal contributions from The Synergy Vocals choir and singer Anghared Brinn, Reed plays all of the instruments on the thirty-nine-minute Sanctuary and resisted any urge to simulate their sounds with synthesizers, of which none were used on the recording.

It's one thing, though, to revisit the idea of fashioning a one-man album product featuring two side-long pieces; it's another to reproduce the sound of Oldfield's music to such a note-perfect degree. Not only do Reed's instrument selections—grand piano, guitars, bass, mandolin, glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, timpani, banjo, recorders, organ, and tubular bells—mirror Oldfield's, Reed even replicates the signature sound of Oldfield's electric guitar playing.

“Part 1” opens with a pastoral section that, heavy on recorder and acoustic guitar, sounds like an alternate opening for Hergest Ridge before moving on to bravura guitar-and-percussion flourishes reminiscent of Incantations, a pulsing, bass-prodded episode suggestive of Tubular Bells, an entrancing Ommadawn-like acoustic part featuring vocals and marimbas, and—but you get the idea. Reed even includes in a snippet of “Good King Wenceslas,” reminiscent of the way Oldfield worked “The Sailor's Hornpipe” into the end of Tubular Bells. “Part 2” is, in moments, a tad less derivative of Oldfield's sound, though the connection is still undeniable. Though none of Sanctuary's melodies is a direct copy of Oldfield's, Reed's material evokes Oldfield's in every other way.

However well it succeeds as a replication of Oldfield's music, Sanctuary does fall short of Oldfield's 1970s opuses in one way, and that's in the way the material on Ommadawn, for example, develops so organically over the course of its two long parts. Reed's, by comparison, often feels like a patchwork of sections stitched into a sequence that's certainly listenable but whose transitions sometimes seem abrupt. Apparently, Oldfield collaborator Simon Heyworth, who mastered Sanctuary, told Reed that “when he heard it, he closed his eyes and he was back in Manor Studios in 1973.” That won't come as any surprise to listeners intimately familiar with Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, and Incantations, echoes of which reverberate throughout Sanctuary. Whether they do so to too great a degree will be up to the individual listener to decide.

October 2014