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Mike Oldfield revisits 1984 with reissues and new rarities set

By Paul Sinclair

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As revealed by this blog back in March, Mike Oldfield continues with his long-running reissue programme and early next year we will not only see Discovery and The Killing Fields re-released (the former as a deluxe set) but also a new selection of music of that era called The 1984 Suite.

Oldfield’s ninth studio album Discovery has been newly remastered and will be reissued as an expanded 2CD+DVD deluxe set. The first disc will add five bonus tracks including an extended version of To France, along with B-sides and extra tracks from a 12-inch single. The second CD is The 1984 Suite which gathers together tracks from Discovery and The Killing Fields along with rarities and a newly-voiced version of Poison Arrows, called Zombies (Halloween Special).

The DVD in the Discovery deluxe contains The 1984 Suite in 5.1 surround sound (created by Mike, of course) and hi-res stereo and adds three promos (To France, Tricks of the Light and Etude). The notes in the booklet will include a new interview with Mike Oldfield.

The 1984 Suite will also be reissued separately on vinyl and is surely worth purchasing, if only for the stunning artwork (see below).

1984suite
Beautiful artwork for “The 1984 Suite”

Oldfield’s soundtrack to Roland Joffé’s The Killing Fields has also been remastered and will be reissued on vinyl and CD. The CD version includes two bonus tracks: Evacuation (single edit) and Etude (single edit)

The 1984 Suite, Discovery and The Killing Fields are all reissued on 29 January 2016.

pre-order

discovery_mikeoldfield

Discovery

2CD+DVD Deluxe Edition

Vinyl Edition

Thekillingfields

The Killing Fields

Vinyl Edition

Expanded CD remaster (with 2 bonus tracks)

1984suite

The 1984 Suite

Vinyl Edition

track_listing

Discovery Deluxe Edition

Disc 1

]1. To France
2. Poison Arrows
3. Crystal Gazing
4. Tricks of the light
5. Discovery
6. Talk About Your Life
7. Saved By a Bell
8. The Lake

Bonus tracks (not on single disc edition)

9. To France (extended version)*
10. In the Pool*
11. Bones*
12. Afghan**
13. Tricks of the Light (instrumental)**

* Taken from the “To France” 12 – inch single
** B – side of the “Tricks of the Light” 12

Disc 2

The 1984 Suite

  • To France
  • The Lake
  • The Killing Fields (Main theme)
  • Etude
  • The Royal Mile (Re-discovered track)
  • Zombies (Halloween Special )
  • Discovery

Disc 3 (DVD)

The 1984 Suite

  • To France
  • The Lake
  • The Killing Fields (Main theme)
  • Etude
  • The Royal Mile (Re-discovered track)
  • Zombies (Halloween Special )
  • Discovery

5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Mixes by Mike Oldfield

Promotional videos:

  1. To France
  2. Tricks of the Light
  3. Etude

The Killing Fields

1. Pran’s Theme
2. Requiem for a City
3. Evacuation
4. Pran’s Theme 2
5. Capture
6. Execution
7. Bad News
8. Pran’s Departure
9. Worksite
10. The Year Zero
11. Blood Sucking
12. The Year Zero 2
13. Pran’s Escape/The Killing Fields
14. The Trek
15. The Boy’s Burial/Pran Sees the Red Cross
16. Good News
17. Etude

Bonus tracks

  1. Evacuation (single edit)

Etude (single edit)

pre-order

discovery_mikeoldfield

Discovery

2CD+DVD Deluxe Edition

Vinyl Edition

Thekillingfields

The Killing Fields

Vinyl Edition

Expanded CD remaster (with 2 bonus tracks)

1984suite

The 1984 Suite

Vinyl Edition

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32 Comments

32 thoughts on “Mike Oldfield revisits 1984 with reissues and new rarities set”

  1. Pingback: SDE Reissue Preview for 2016 | superdeluxeedition

  2. Seeing The Lake is coming in 5.1 is all I need to know to order this one, but disappointed to see paltry DVD-V for the surround mixes. A lossless download for God’s sake, would that be so hard to do if you can’t release a Blu-ray as the latter comes up on its 10th birthday next June?

  3. In my opinion, the most interesting part of this reissue series are the live recordings. Sadly there is nothing here of that.
    The second most interesting part are the 5.1 mixes of the original albums. Again, you won’t find such a thing here.
    The third most interesting aspect is the reworkings of the material. In this case, the Suite. Well folks, an advancement has been published officially yesterday in YouTube, the track called Zombies. Yes it is cringeworthy, but for the wrong reason. If all the Suite follows this pattern, it may be something quite horrible. We are warned.

    (Yes, there are also the B-sides, but most if not all of them have already been released in different compilations).

    This is one of the Deluxe Editions I have been waiting for for a longtime, and it looks like it is going to be a massive disappointment. How I’d love to be proven wrong.

  4. If the video I’ve just watched on Vevo is to be believed, Zombies is a reworking of Poison Arrows with what sounds like Stephen Hawking handling the vocals.

    Words fail me:(

  6. Finally the releases continue. I agree with the comment that “Pictures In The Dark”, and “Shine” are missing. I still remember buying Mike Oldfield: The Complete 2 Cd. After a while “The Complete” was re-released with the track “Pictures in the dark”. I was not really happy about that back then. :) But anyway, maybe these tracks will be released on future releases. ????? Oh, and by the way, where is the remastered 5.1 version of “Exposed” ?????

  7. Very disapointed that the “1984 suite” or the remastered albums don’t include original unreleased tracks (except one)…especially from the Killing Fields’ soundtrack, for which it seems a lot more music had been produced…; I expected the “1984 suite ” to be like a brand new album with unreleased pieces…but it’s not…too bad…

    1. I assume that the “1984 suite” versions are remixes from the original multitrack, as per the tweaked updated tracks on the Incantations deluxe edition.

  10. If the 1984 suite looks and sounds good, I remember reading that earlier this year Mike was getting together a new “Suite 1987-89” for release in 2016.

    He said he there was 25 reels of multitrack tapes (25 hours) to listen to for two albums. So next must be the album Islands and Earth Moving

  12. “The lake” and “Etude” in 5.1. Great!! I am happy that Oldfield continues with the reissues and new surprises. A gift received with pleasure!

  13. Pingback: Still Weird Music News for October 30th, 2015 | Still Weird Zine

  14. I got off the bus following “Crises”, but the positive comments here have me curious. Is “Discovery” primarily instrumental or are there a lot of vocals as per side 1 of “Crises”?

    1. Discovery consists mainly of shorter poppy song material, with if memory serves just the one extended instrumental (the final track). Some of the b-sides however are also non-vocal.

    3. It has even more vocals than Crises. Save for the instrumental The Lake (roughly 10 minutes) all the rest are songs. But it is a remarkably good series of songs, not only To France. If you like the short songs, this is probably his most ambitious and accomplished work ever.

  16. So there are only three tracks from the Discovery album and two tracks from the KF album in 5.1? That’s disappointing. And the 1984 Suite consists of only one and a half unreleased tracks?
    That’s curious and not what I expected….

  17. I’m sure that Mike said some time ago that some of the original multi-track tapes were missing, which is why he could only create surround mixes of some tracks and not all of them.

    1. You mean back to the past.

      Back To The Future is about being Marty being stuck in the past and trying to get back to his own time in the future. Hence ‘back’ to the future.

      You have tried to riff on that and have sadly used it in the entirely wrong context. If you are online picking up on mistakes don’t make your own while trying to prove a point.

  20. I’m not sure about the use of the plural “rarities” to describe the contents of the 1984 suite – I make that one rarity (The Royal Mile) and an existing track with a new vocal. I have to say that I never listen to his similar “remix some bits” approach of Incantations, so I’m not hugely excited by this.

    A shame he didn’t rescue some of the tracks that made it into the film of TKF but weren’t on the soundtrack album – there are a couple on bootlegs, such as The Darkroom Sequence and Pran’s Last Night.

    Also odd (and disappointing) that the non-album singles from that period, Pictures In The Dark and Shine aren’t included anywhere – fingers crossed they get added to the deluxe Islands, assuming one appears.

    1. Discover and TKF were both from 1984, Pictures in the Dark is from 1985 and Shine from 1986. I suppose that Islands (from 1987) will include all these singles

  21. I am over the moon with this being released (Discovery).

    I don’t think Mike has fallen out with 5.1, it’s been a hard year for him. His son died this year. So he probably lost his mojo for a little while, which is very much understandable.

  22. Gutted to see Discovery not getting the full 5.1 treatment. Is Mr Oldfield falling out of love with the format? Maybe he’s just bored of doing all the mixes himself?

    He should give Steven Wilson a bell…

  23. After the stellar job mixing Five Miles Out and Crises in 5.1, I was really looking forward to the next batch of reissues from Mr.Oldfield. But I must admit feeling a little gutted that my personal favourite MO album The Killing Fields is not receiving the same treatment. The track listing for the 1984 Suite however looks pretty good so at least I’ll hear some of TKF tracks in surround.

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