Hergest Ridge
Audiophiles will understand this post.
First off, I love the Internet. I love, love, love it. Yeah, it has its flaws. No doubt about it. But, last night the Internet allowed me to immerse myself in absolute musical heaven.
One of the interesting things about growing up in the environment I did was that, in spite of my non-musical abilities, I hung around with people who did. They were the band geeks. I was a chess/math geek. However, one thing that geeks have in common is a love of knowledge and a quest for the unknown. Band geeks love music; at least the ones I hung with. And so, I became a music lover as well.
I remember the first time I heard Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. I heard it pure; free from its eventual association with The Exorcist. It was so different, so … awesome. Certainly like nothing that got radio airplay back in the day.
My father was an audiophile and, truth be told, I am an audiophile because of his influences as well. Being an electrician, he built his first stereo system from kits and parts. His tastes were nothing like mine, being rooted in classical and jazz, though I do now own a copy of Chick Corea’s “Return to Forever” CD because of him. So, after experiencing music like Tubular Bells as well as other varied genres of music, Moody Blues, Boston and the like, I asked my father for a stereo for my upcoming high school graduation gift. Together, we picked out the various components: Technics receiver, Pioneer turntable, &c.
As this was 1983 or so, the Technics receiver had analog tuning. The “needle”, which slid across a frequency scale by means of a dial, was a backlit piece of plastic. The lighting would turn green if the signal wasn’t strong enough and turn white when the signal was strong enough to be locked. It was a pretty cool piece of kit back then.
Anyway, after picking up Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, I browsed the record store looking for another Oldfield offering. There in the bins was Oldfield’s 2nd album, Hergest Ridge, another 2-track offering.
It was … absolutely outstanding. While it lacked the excitement of Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge was a well-balanced moodily ambient piece interspersed with guitar riffs that complemented the overall mood. It was music that could be played as background, but that could also stimulate the mind when played back through headphones. It had aural textures, layers which fed each other and became more than the sum of its parts.
In short, I absolutely loved it. I nearly wore out the vinyl playing this gem over and over again.
Fast-forward to the late 80s, when CDs started becoming commonplace, I decided to trade all of my vinyl in for $$$ at a used record store and started rebuilding my music collection with CDs. One of my first purchases was Hergest Ridge.
What a disappointment!! Somehow, inexplicably, the mix had been changed. What had been a major musical treasure of overlapping complementary textures was now a cacophonous mess! WTF?!!!
Over the two decades since, I’ve tried and I’ve tried and OH GOD(!) how I’ve tried to get into and appreciate the new mix, but to no avail. In my humble opinion, it sucks in comparison. Musical layers which were in the background were now in the foreground and vice versa. It was like watching Star Wars, but with the colors inverted.
So last night, after trying to listen to Hergest Ridge once again, I decided to do an Internet hunt to see if perhaps my CD pressing was in error. Perhaps noone else had this problem and I could simply order a new one. I was clutching at straws.
First stop: Google. From Google, I went to the Wikipedia entry on the album. There, before my eyes, the mystery was solved. In 1976, Mike Oldfield remixed the album for quadraphonic stereo (an early attempt at surround sound) and released it as part of a boxed set called Boxed. Furthermore, he stipulated that this mix was to be the one used for any future rereleases. That’s why the CD is different. It’s using the Boxed mix. And the publisher’s hands are tied.
What?! 
Why?!
(My Star Wars analogy was proving profound. Maybe George Lucas and Mike Oldfield know each other. *cough* Han shot first! *cough*)
From there, I followed a Google link to Amazon. There was a new 2000 remastered pressing of the CD. Hmmm…. Maybe….
But no. A reviewer there had the same lament as I did. It was the Boxed mix. “Don’t waste your money.”
I then followed yet another link to a “private” discography which mentioned an “original mix”. Turns out, a sound engineer by the name of Martin Bartošik, himself a huge Mike Oldfield fan, transferred the original vinyl recording to digital and then post-processed the resulting digital music to remove the pops and skips that vinyl produces.
Hope? Could there be hope?
Back to Google: “original mix hergest ridge”
A HA!!!!
After skipping past several bit torrent links (which I won’t use b/c I don’t want my system to be a download station), I finally found a blog entry with a link to where I could download the files.
- Download .rar file
- Download Unrar Utility for OS X
- Extract music
- Import into iTunes
- Listen
For the first time in over 20 years, I am finally, finally, finally listening to the original 1974 mix of Hergest Ridge.
Oh sweet music!!!……..