News

With our very best wishes from all at Dark Star!

A walking and online tour about Reading's musical history launches later today and includes information about Mike Oldfield and shows the house where Mike grew up on its tour maps.

Sadly, Kevn Ayers has died in his home in France. Mike Oldfield worked closely with Kevin early in his career, although they did record together again many times. More details in The Telegraph newspaper.

Hello Everyone! Well I finally started work on the 5.1 Taurus 2. My studio is at the bottom of the garden here in the Bahamas although all the equipment is in my office back up at the house. I have been trying to work out why I was not getting any digital signal down there for the audio. I finally found out my two dogs ( They are Potcakes and brothers ) have chewed the cables !!! So anyway it is all fixed now and I am back to work. It really sounds fantastic and does not need much mixing, as I think by the time I recorded these track I was a pretty good sound engineer and used to record every effect as well. Oh you should check out my son Luke's site as he is working now in the same studio where I recorded these albums Mike x

In a new interview published in the Telegraph today, Mike has revealed he is working on a rock album, which includes a song about domestic violence. More information in his Personal Facebook Group

We hope you managed to see the Olympics Opening Ceremony - we’ve been itching but unable to share for months! We (and it seems the rest of the World) were mightily impressed with Danny Boyle’s incredibly diverse and humorous presentation of Great Britain, made all the more special because Mike's World-class, timeless and epic work has finally got the recognition and exposure it deserves. It goes without saying that Tubular Bells, Two Sides, QE2 and Platinum are all much higher in the Amazon charts than they were yesterday! Mike's contribution is available in full on the Isles of Wonder album. Hats off to all involved!

Mike has met Johnnie Walker in London and will contribute to his Radio 2 Show Sounds of the 70s, to be broadcast this Sunday at 3pm

On the eve of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, which features Mike's music and the World's largest harmonically tuned bell, Mike has been spotted in London. We suggest you may want to watch the Opening Ceremony tomorrow at 9pm (BST)!

In addition to Mike recently announcing he is working on the "project of a lifetime" (more on this here, but more still to come), Platinum and QE2 Deluxe editions and a self compiled career restrospective are to be released on 30th July.

Terry Oldfield has finished work on the recording of his new album Journey Into Space featuring Mike on guitars. It includes a track called Flight of the Eagle, which is an arrangement of a piece that Mike and Terry used to play live in Barefoot, their pre Tubular Bells band.  This track also features Mike on guitars. Further details are available at Terry's website.

Phoning in from the Bahamas, Mike was guest on Radcliffe & Maconie on BBC's 6 Music today. As well as talking about Incantations, key extracts were that he has done a remote recording session with drummer John Robinson via Skype and has been working on club remixes of old material. He said there "may be something next year, with the possibility of a live show, although it's very early days". We will share any updates here as soon as we get them. He also confirmed that preliminary work on the Telecaster album has not progressed, although the ideas are stored and may develop one day. Most importantly, he announced he is still working and producing whilst also spending plenty of time playing with the kids!

More details from Universal here