Water Bearer [CD]

This work consists of folk/spiritual/mystic songs themed on Lord Of The Rings. The tracks are woven seamlessly together to make a cohesive whole. It is in my opinion Sally's best album, and an under-rated masterpiece. I must have played it dozens of times, and every song is exquisite.

This is an adorable album of heart-rending beauty, penned and performed in the late '70s by Mike Oldfield's lesser-known sister. You might, if you're of A Certain Age, dimly recall the mesmeric single Mirrors that charted (briefly) in '78. If you are also the sort of person who feels that brother Mike's Incantations better summed up the summer of '78 than, say, the Buzzcocks and Sham 69, you'll need little more encouragement from me. I imagine your cursor is already twitching over the "Buy Now With 1-Click" button.

But hold on. There's some Bad News too. You see, sister Sally was seemingly besotted with The Lord of the Rings while composing this song cycle and the whole album is steeped in a Tolkienesque marinade of questing Elves, woodland demigods and noble monarchs with healing hands. In fact, the second track is a 16-minute prog-folk odyssey which scrapes the nether regions of Tolkien's nigh-unreadable The Silmarillion for anthemic elven lyrics. Yes, you do well to shudder. Hey - I play Dungeons & Dragons and I still skip _that_ one more often than not!

The Bad News out of the way, we can focus on the Good News, which is twofold: (a) Sally Oldfield has an exceptional cut-glass folk voice, and (b) the songs are joyous, delicate and intricate compositions that will lodge themselves in your brain and demand to be heard over and over again.

The sound of a gurgling torrent sweeps in the opening title track with its peculiarly catchy chanted chorus and tumbling strings. This little gem segues into the aforementioned Songs Of The Quendi. If you can see past the sword & sorcery lyrics, this is a delightfully complex song sequence that rewards attention to the music, if not the words. Side one (as used to be) is rounded off by the refreshingly contemporary Mirrors.

But it's side two that lifts the procedings into the realm of Beauty. The enchanting Weaver is a delirious folk-ish meisterwerk that affects the ear like some Rubik's puzzle in need of solving - due in no small measure to the opening keyboard riff, salvaged from Mike's Tubular Bells (you know, the bit they used to soundtrack The Exorcist [1974]?). Night Of The Hunter's Moon is more straightforward but manages its own strange blend of the spine-tingling and pulse-raising. The dreamy Child Of Allah feels slightly out of place after that but merges quickly into the album's high point, Fire And Honey: the inspiration for this strange and hypnotic folk-oddity seems to be the Tom Bombadil episode from Fellowship of the Ring but the music itself is beamed down from an alien satellite orbitting Jupiter, as far as I can tell. After that, the only way is out and Song Of The Healer carries the album off in euphoric ballad mode.

Clearly, there's a lot here to dislike, especially if hobbits and river-goddesses bring you out in hives. In many ways, this album is the definitive statement of Why Punk Had To Happen. Nevertheless, it's got an enduring charm. If Sally Oldfield's voice occasionally grates in a plummy Julie Andrews sort of way, at other times she can swoop and purr like a prototypical Kate Bush. The musicianship is intricate and the melodies are addictive and the whole thing is suffused in the dappled sunlight of Sally's own private mythology, blending Anglo-Irish occultism with Tolkien's odder recesses. It's certainly a more idiosyncratic and effective perspective on Lord Of The Rings than more recent prog-folk offerings inspired by the blockbuster movies - but if you don't believe me, forge through Mostly Autumn's 2001 homage or Howard Shore's movie soundtracks then come back and acknowledge Oldfield's ability to nail the whole complex mythopoeic structure, haiku style, in 42 minutes, 39 if you discount Mirrors.

Not to everyone's taste then, but possessed of a unique sensibility, exquisite songwriting and a teasing mystique that, elf-like, refuses to age as the years pass and the leaves of our lives turn yellow and sear.

I first heard this in 1978 when I bought the vinyl version and I loved it then. This CD was a real blast from the past, I had forgotten just what a beautiful voice Sally Oldfield has. The songs are so pretty and lyrics so ingenious I cannot imagine why I had not bought the CD before. I think it must be about 20 years ago that I last listened to this album, it won't be another 20, maybe 20 minutes.