11 years after his first ambitious homage to Mike Oldfield, Robert Reed is back with the long-awaited fourth instalment in his Sanctuary series. With a little help from Oldfield collaborators Les Penning, Tom Newman and drummer Simon Phillips, the Magenta and Cyan mastermind tells Prog about his mission to keep long-form music alive.
In 1983 a young Robert Reed travelled from Wales to Wembley for a show by his hero, Mike Oldfield. At the end of the 20-minute Crises, drummer Simon Phillips let loose in a virtuosic display that made a lasting impression on Reed. He bought a bootleg tape and played that drum solo to death.
“Whenever I send Simon my stuff, I always think I’m not challenging him enough,” Reed tells Prog more than 40 years later. “I said I thought I was insulting him by not getting him to play something bonkers. He said, ‘No, I love playing your stuff because it’s just melodic.’”
Phillips has played on all but the first of Reed’s four Sanctuary outings (five if you count 2021’s The Ringmaster). The project, which sits outside his well-known work with Magenta, sees him proudly embrace his love for his hero’s early work. Phillips, Oldfield’s former producer Tom Newman and Ommadawn co-musician Les Penning add to the authenticity.
The latest entry, Sanctuary IV, takes the listener for another glide across Oldfieldian melodic-rock vistas – plains of beautifully made instrumental music adorned with Penning’s Celtic pipes and Reed’s glockenspiels, mandolins, pianos and the occasional tubular bell. His mastery of his hero’s guitar tone, notably his vibrato, remains uncanny.
The Eternal Search is a mellifluous, 20-minute odyssey taking up the de facto side one. Its climactic drum part came about when Reed reminded Phillips about that Wembley moment, and asked him to let rip in a similar vein. When the drum parts arrived at Reed’s Rhondda Valley studio, he says, “I was nearly crying. I was smiling so much. The drums just got more and more bonkers – my speakers were shaking. Most drum solos are like someone building a shed, but this was so melodic. I’m so glad I asked Simon to do that.”
Whereas Penning shares Reed’s view that melody is king, Newman always urges him to be more radical, to push things further away from the clean production style of his pop background. When he told Reed he mixes like a BBC sound engineer, Reed knew it wasn’t necessarily a compliment. “Tom said, ‘Everything is so perfect and sounds so beautiful – but you’ve got to go back in and fight and get some angst, and more dynamics.”
After about six months of finessing IV, Reed sent Newman all the stems – around 100 tracks of bass, guitars and keyboards. Newman moved things around, extended some moments, shortened others, removed others entirely. He ripped vocals from the middle of one piece and used them as a discordant introduction to the second long piece, Truth. He assured Reed it would amplify the beauty of the following melody.
“It was such a brilliant idea,” says Reed. “It was like coming out of a storm into the sunlight. I would never have thought of that. That’s what he brought to the table with Mike Oldfield. You can hear it on the records he worked on with Mike [Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge among them]. You’ve got to have someone that tells you that you can make it better. For so many bands and musicians, their ego would see it almost as a sign of weakness. But for me it’s gold.”
Tom Newman has told me, ‘If you stop, it’s going to die as a format.’ So it’s a bit of a mission.”
Despite his success with Magenta and other projects – such as prog supergroup Cyan and Chimpan A with Welsh singer Steve Balsamo – Reed observes that there’s very little crossover in the audience between his other output and his Sanctuary side. He reckons that around 90% of Sanctuary fans believe that’s all he actually does.
“They think all I’ve done for my whole life is try to imitate Mike Oldfield! They don’t know about the other stuff – that I’ve got nearly 30 years’ worth of albums and awards all over Europe. I do Sanctuary because I love it, but I’m not just this. That’s the hard one for me. I don’t mind people not liking it, but it’s when they say, ‘Oh he’s just a one-trick pony trying to make money off the back of Mike,’ – that’s so far away from what I’m trying to do.
“Mike has stopped making this kind of longform music, so for me it’s a bit about keeping this music alive. Tom has told me, ‘You gotta keep doing it, because if you stop it’s going to die as a format.’ So it’s a bit of a mission.”
He’s well aware of the fine line between torchbearer and pasticheur. On reflection, he says he probably got too close to that line on the first album in 2014. “Not the notes – I’d never lift the notes – but I listen back to a few parts and think, ‘Shit, I shouldn’t have done that.’ But I made the first record for fun, for me. I didn’t know I was going to release it, or that people would like it. There’s a hell of a lot more of me in there now.”
I could have had a drum machine, but I got Simon Phillips. That’s the deal I make with the people who buy the records
He’s helmed three Sanctuary shows over the years, including gigs at Real World Studios in 2016 and Arlington Arts Centre, Newbury, in 2023. Mounting such a sumptuous record on the live stage is another mission entirely, involving more than a dozen musicians, months of prep, and a significant financial investment. Although he remembers the concerts as nerve-racking and stressful, he says he’ll do it again at some point. And no doubt he will, rightly, offer it on Blu-ray and CD.
We live in the streaming age, but it’s physical sales that keep the studio lights on. You won’t find Sanctuary IV on Spotify. Reed’s footprint on there is small – the first Sanctuary record, a Magenta best-of, Chimpan A’s The Empathy Machine and a couple of recent singles: morsels to tantalise and encourage further listening. Some people have actually had the cheek to complain to him about it.
“They moan if you charge £10 for an album, but they’ll spend that on a pizza! They say, ‘Why aren’t your records on Spotify?’ Because I’ve got to feed my kids! Having my record on Spotify on the day of release would be insane. I see every band doing it, then wondering why they’re not living in the lap of luxury. If you can afford to do that, great, but I can’t.
“I’d rather people bought my record and valued it, and in return for their £10 I’ll give them the best production I possibly can. I could have had a drum machine on my record, but I had Simon Phillips on it. That’s the deal I make with the people who buy the records.”
This reassuringly old-school, quality-first approach says much about the music. Which, ultimately, is niche stuff, lovingly produced in a small studio in the back of the Welsh beyond and unheard by the many. But it’s treasured by the loyal few. And if some of us think he hasn’t yet truly been given his flowers, Reed himself doesn’t dwell on that. Well, not too much.
“I remind myself that I’m doing music 24/7. No one’s bossing me around. I’m so lucky to be able to do this. I wouldn’t say no to a few more record sales and maybe a little more recognition for the craft, I suppose. I listen to what I do, and I think it’s done to such a high level. I just want to be in the mix a little bit more with it. That’s what drives me.”
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