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Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by the English multi-instrumentalist and composer Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the inaugural catalog release of Virgin Records. Comprising two largely instrumental, long-form movements, the album fuses elements of progressive rock, folk, and minimalism. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when recording began, composed most of the music and performed almost all of the instruments himself through extensive overdubbing. This production method involved dozens of complex tape layers and thousands of punched-in corrections, a process that was highly innovative for a rock release at the time. The album was recorded at The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, funded by Virgin co-founder Richard Branson, and co-produced by Oldfield with engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. It features a diverse range of instrumentation—including various guitars, keyboards, percussion, and a set of tubular bells—culminating in a famous finale on "Part One" in which the instruments are introduced individually by the master of ceremonies Vivian Stanshall. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
