Tubular Bells II
| Tubular Bells II | ||||
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| Studio album by Mike Oldfield | ||||
| Released | 31 August 1992 | |||
| Recorded | Los Angeles, Roughwood Croft | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 58:34 | |||
| Label |
WEA Reprise/Warner Bros. (US) 45041 |
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| Producer |
Trevor Horn Tom Newman Mike Oldfield |
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| Mike Oldfield chronology | ||||
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| Tubular Bells series chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Tubular Bells II | ||||
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| Allmusic |   |
Tubular Bells II is the 15th album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1992. The album – the first for his new record label, Warner Bros., following an acrimonious departure from Virgin after twenty years – was a sequel to Oldfield's 1973 Tubular Bells. Another sequel, Tubular Bells III, followed in 1998.
The album charted at number 1 in the UK as did its precursor. It is Oldfield's third number one album (after Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge) and, as of 2015[update], his last number one album to date.
Virgin Records had been pushing Oldfield to create a sequel to Tubular Bells for many years prior to his departure from the label, but Oldfield was hesitant to do so, although his penultimate album for the label, Amarok, was in several respects a conceptual sequel to his 1975 album Ommadawn.
For Tubular Bells II Oldfield enlisted the help of Tom Newman, who had helped produce the original, as well as established producer Trevor Horn (known for his work with The Buggles, Yes and Art of Noise). "Early Stages" which is an early version of what would become "Sentinel" was included as a B-side to the single version of "Sentinel". "Early Stages" has a somewhat darker mood and is from the pre-Trevor Horn development of the album, possibly showing the kind of influence that Horn had.
Tubular Bells II partly follows musical structures of the original Tubular Bells (1973). Themes of the original Bells are taken and then completely re-composed and played with mostly new instruments. The result is an album that has same kind of thematic variation but is still new musically. Some themes can be seen as variations of themes taken from the original Bells, while some other parts of Tubular Bells II do not have much common with the themes of the original album except their overall mood or feeling.
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