Mike Oldfield-"Hergest Ridge" (1974)

After the overwhelming success of "Tubular Bells", Mike Oldfield retired to the outskirts of London in a place called the hills of Hergest Ridge, where his home-studio was located in 1974, and recorded a new album which he would call the same name said hill.
In this new album Oldfield returns to record an entirely instrumental work of epic proportions, very similar to the structures and instrumentation of "Tubular Bells", giving the music a symphonic character, but more pastoral than its predecessor.
For this recording, Mike Oldfield once again uses instruments such as bells, oboes, glokenspiel, eardrums, Farfisa organs, Lowery, gongs, mandolins or acoustic and electric guitars, all this to weave an amazing sound mat that reaches its climax towards the middle of the second part , more specifically in the so-called "Storm on Mars", where he used about 90 guitars to achieve one of the most extraordinary of his entire career and in music in general.
"Hergest Ride" is a superb album that reaffirmed Oldfield's maturity and skills as a songwriter, but was nevertheless weighed down by the enormous success of its predecessor "Tubular Bells".