Artist: Oldfield, Mike
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 1982
Length: 50:03
Rating: 4/5
After the exceptional music Mike Oldfield managed to create with QE 2, new challenges were waiting for Mike. And the new challenge arrived just a year later, in the form of the album Five Miles Out. For this record, Mike Oldfield wanted to create a real band atmosphere. As a result, two of the tracks are even group compositions (Family Man, Orabidoo), which is a great rarity for Oldfield. The lineup featured established musicians like Tim Cross, Rick Fenn, Morris Pert, Maggie Reilly and Mike Frye. Carl Palmer appears as a guest on Mount Teidi and his percussion parts are truly excellent.
The opener goes straight for the peak with Taurus II, a sort of continuation of Taurus I from QE2. It’s a typical Oldfield composition made up of several movements, and stylistically the music is a lovely blend of folk, rock and symphonic music (especially in terms of composition and arrangements). The track once again has that classic Oldfield cyclical structure, where it returns to the original idea at the end. It’s never boring or too long, even though it only wraps up after twenty-five minutes, because there are so many high points. I especially love it when the bagpipes join the other instruments.
Family Man is a more laid-back affair, which you’d kind of expect after those tense first twenty-five minutes, where the English wizard took us on a really wild ride. Family Man has some truly melodic parts and, as always, the ever-magical voice of Maggie Reilly adds its share, enchanting me every time.
Orabidoo starts off very promisingly, but in the middle section that real feeling disappears, especially when the band tries to venture into more experimental waters (this is particularly annoying in the parts with the vocoder). Oldfield should leave experimenting to those who are good at it. His experiments have never really worked for me, not on Orabidoo, and not on Killing Fields, Music From The Balcony or Amarok either. Luckily, Mike doesn’t stay unfocused for too long on Orabidoo and quickly pulls himself together, and at the end we even get some outstanding parts and a finale on acoustic guitar (of which there’s too little on the album!) along with the angelic voice of Maggie Reilly.
Next comes a short but sweet instrumental, where Carl Palmer joins in. The motif, if I’m not mistaken, is taken from the album Crises. A very good tune, where the temperature and tempo keep building all the way to the end.
To wrap things up there’s the title track, which is a bit of a letdown considering everything we’ve heard before. Mike is annoying with the vocoder again, but luckily the end of the song is good enough to save it.
Five Miles Out does sound a bit more band-oriented, but Oldfield didn’t take any risks in his songwriting because of that. If anything, he added some grandeur and depth, and in a way returned to the seventies. With Platinum and QE 2 he made more accessible records, but this time, at least with Taurus II, he showed once again that he can still hold the listener’s attention for more than twenty minutes. Orabidoo is also a more ambitious piece, while the remaining three are friendlier to the ears and suited for radio hits (radio friendly).
I think Oldfield’s playing never needs commenting on anyway, because that side of things is always at an enviable level. This time Oldfield decided to accept help, even on instruments where he never wanted it before (guitar, for example), and the risk paid off, because the album sounds very mighty and full, more than ever before (and maybe even later). You can tell he surrounded himself with nothing but cunning old foxes who knew how to help him with his vision and polished it up a bit further.
As on its predecessor, on Five Miles Out Oldfield mixes the style of the seventies with a more modern, fresh sound of the eighties. He was constantly searching for and using new sounds in order to improve and change his style. That’s exactly why he’s considered one of the best musicians of all time, and he still hasn’t said everything. While we wait for his next masterpiece, we can enjoy this flawed but at times exceptional music.
Lineup
Mike Oldfield – guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals
Tim Cross – keyboards
Rick Fenn – guitars
Morris Pert – percussion, keyboards
Maggie Reilly – vocals
Graham Broad – drums (5)
Mike Frye – percussion
Paddy Maloney – bagpipes (1)
Carl Palmer – percussion (4)
Production
Tom Newman, Mike Oldfield
Track list
1. Taurus II (24:49)
2. Family man (3:45)
3. Orabidoo (13:03)
4. Mount Teidi (4:10)
5. Five miles out (4:17)
