Ommadawn
| Ommadawn | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Mike Oldfield | ||||
| Released | 21 October 1975 | |||
| Recorded | The Beacon, January–September 1975 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock, folk, world | |||
| Length | 36:41 | |||
| Label |
Virgin Mercury (2010 reissue) |
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| Producer | Mike Oldfield | |||
| Mike Oldfield chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Ommadawn | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Ommadawn is the third record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1975 on Virgin Records. It peaked at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. The album was reissued by Mercury Records in June 2010 with additional content. A sequel album, titled Return to Ommadawn, was released on 20 January 2017.
As with Hergest Ridge and Tubular Bells, Ommadawn is another two-movement work. Mike Oldfield, as with Hergest Ridge, makes economic use of a relatively small number of subjects throughout Ommadawn and develops them extensively, both with musical variation and varying the instruments used. Each of the two movements of Ommadawn utilise their own subjects without sharing them between the two movements. Oldfield sought out the ancient Celtic influence on English music and composed for traditional instruments such as uilleann pipes on the original LP version. A set of Northumbrian smallpipes were also recorded, and credited to "Herbie", but this recording was not used on the album.
Oldfield recorded each layer of sound and played the bulk of the instruments throughout Ommadawn, with the exception of a few musicians noted for their work in folk music: Clodagh Simonds, Paddy Moloney and the heavy African drumming of Jabula.
On the album Oldfield played two electric guitars: a red Gibson SG Junior and a blonde Fender Telecaster. Oldfield appears to have been using two electric bass guitars at the time; a Fender Precision and a Gibson EB-3. An acoustic bass guitar built by Tony Zemaitis and a Ramirez classical guitar appear on the album. The piano on the album is likely to be a Bösendorfer. A Fender lap steel guitar is also thought to appear on "On Horseback", although uncredited. Many of Oldfield's instruments from this period are shown in a photograph which was included in the Boxed 4-LP box set.
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