Having enjoyed "Tubular Bells II" in 1992, I was keen to hear Mike's next album when it was released a couple of years later. I originally bought the CD of "Songs of Distant Earth" and fell in love with it immediately. This album is, for me at least, Mike's best work and in my top ten favourite albums by any artist.
I bought this repressing of the LP in 2014 as I couldn't resist owning one of my favourite albums on vinyl. Lots of people seem to enjoy this pressing but my copy suffers from static induced crackles and flaws in the vinyl cause loud clicks. Things get better as the record progresses, but the first fifteen minutes of each side can be hard to listen to.
The album opens quietly and slowly (well quietly from a digital source anyway) before launching into the beautiful "Let There Be Light". This track is driven along by a beat Enigma would have been proud of and sprinkled with vocal samples that augment the amazing guitar work. The music segues seamlessly into the next track "Supernova" which builds the most wonderful atmosphere. As the music flows along we reach another of my favourite moments "Only Time Will Tell" which has some amazing guitar melodies amongst the aural fireworks.
The second side features the inevitable homage to the "Tubular Bells" theme but the music on "Tubular World" is so good I don't care if it is recycling the idea. Equally I like "Crystal Clear" so much that I don't care if it uses the ubiquitous (and slightly cliched) "When the Levee Breaks" loop. Like "Tubular Bells II" this album is best when given your full attention and heard from start to finish. This is amazing stuff and I hold this album dear - just not this particular vinyl. 5/5
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For a few years Mike seemed convinced that the future of music lay in interactive CD ROM experiences. As a first foray into this field, later pressings of this album on CD were capable of generating images to accompany the music. Unfortunately this functionality used QuickTime video and was reserved for users of the Apple Macintosh computer. As ~90% of computer users at the time (myself included) couldn't view the content, it's easy to see why this idea never took off.
Today we may scoff at the notion of a Mac only CD ROM being the future of music, but Mike also said this back in early 1995:
"We should have a 'pay to play' entertainment system where you can download whatever you need — music, films, interactive — from a central media library over a telephone line or something similar. I don't know how the billing will work yet, but everything points to that being the system of the future."
Maybe he did know what he was talking about after all.