Ed’s Letter
Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. I wonder how many of you, like me, have long been fascinated with the sonic sculptures and textures of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Even within the spacious musical playground of progressive music, this wonderfully strange album stood out. From its striking sleeve to the flowing music inside, it seemed to capture the zeitgeist like no other, although there was one big competitor, also from 1973… It makes me wonder, as the doldrums of the decade began to bite and England moved inexorably to a winter of discontent later in the decade, what was it about that year that yielded so much groundbreaking and timeless music?