by Adam White

LONDON - When searchlights slash the sky at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland Sept. 4, at least two people will feel a frisson of anticipation. One will be musician Mike Oldfield, as he prepares to perform "Tubular Bells II," the 1992 sequel to his signature work from 20 years earlier. The other will be Rob Dickins, Chairman of Warner Music U.K., for whom Oldfield's new work is a priority release for the fall.

Oldfield debuts his composition in its entirety as part of next month's Edinburgh Festival, with a live broadcast on BBC-TV and proceeds to be donated to the Prince's Trusts in Scotland. On Aug. 31, WEA records ships "Tubular Bells II" in the U.K. and most world markets. On Sept. 15, the album will be released in the U.S. by Reprise.

Dickins signed Oldfield earlier this year. Seperately, the musician has a home video deal for "Tubular Bells II" with Warner, and a new publishing pact with EMI music publishing - which, coincidentally, acquired his previous copyrights when it bought the Virgin Music Group this past summer.

Oldfield's catalog of past recordings - about a dozen albums - stays with Virgin Records. "Tubular Bells" has sold an estimated 16 million copies worldwide since 1973. In recent years, its average annual sales have been about 100,000, according to Oldfield's manager, Clive Banks.

Dickins says the sequel can reach beyond the audience familiar with the first album - which WEA is calling the "prequel" in its publicity material. "When Tubular Bells came out," he declares, it was a challenging piece of music to a generation that had been through the Betles, the Stones, flower power, and all those kinds of things. When you've gone from 'She Loves You' to 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' it's like you're looking for something else. It did incredibly well by being wonderful music - but at the right time."

Today, argues Dickins, a new audience wants to be challenged. "The youth culture has been getting very minimalist music, just drumbeats and samples. What I'm hoping is that there's a subgeneration of young people who are saying, 'Is there anything else?' Classical music serves that to a degree, but it's not part of our youth culture. People flirt with it more than really get into it."

The deciding factor for Dickins was the involvement of producer Trevor Horn. "Mike [Oldfield] is of a period, while Trevor has always been today and tomorrow,  never yesterday.Mike is from a completely different culture, which is to play everything live; Trevor's from this higher technological world. He was the last piece in the jigsaw, which made me think we could really make this valid for the' 90s."

The Warner executive continues, "I also thought there would be more creative friction - there was, of course - which would benefit the piece. It's very much Mike's album, but it's like anything, if you spice it with something very strong, it suddenly brings it  alive."

Horn, who is credited as co-producer of "Tubular Bells II" with Oldfield and Tom Newman, maintains an ongoing relationship with Warner Music U.K. The company has an equity stake in his label, ZTT Records.

Dickins acknowledges that "Tubular Bells II" will invite comparisons with Oldfield's original. "I suppose we live in a world of 'Alien 3,' 'Lethal Weapon 3,' and 'Terminator 2.' Fifteen years ago, [the idea of] "Tubular Bells II" probably had nothing to do with entertainment philosophy. But whether you take the artistic side or the success side, a sequel doesn't necessarily mean a cash-in. 'Godfather 2' was a better film than 'The Godfather,' for instance. It's not Mike Oldfield using the idea to sell records, it's the logical, 20-years-after piece of music."

The sequel and "prequel" might even have been marketed together in a joint campaign between WEA and Virgin, but talks to that effect dead-ended. Banks explains, "we tried to say to Virgin, 'Let's work on it together next year, we'll have Mike remaster the catalog and everything.' But they wanted to do it this year, which means we won''t be involved. Can you imagine the campaign there could have been had we done it together next year?"

The Edinburgh concert is a launch for Oldfield going on the road, according to Banks, with plans for a European tour next year, beginning one of many. He says U.S, dates are "definitely" under consideration, including New York's Carnegie hall as a likely type of venue. "Mike is keen to tour the entire world."

In seeking a label home for "Tubular Bells II," Banks says Virgin Records was a candidate, but it didn't appear to have total enthusiasm for the project. "Mike hit it off with Rob [Dickins] immediately, because they could talk music. Later, Mike told me, 'I didn't realise there were people like that left in the business. I didn't talk music with Richard [Branson].'"

Dickins is considered on e of the most A&R-oriented chief executives of the U.K. majors - although he has never been an A&R man, "Which is an irony," he comments, because that's all I wanted to be when I first started." Even after 18 years with Warner,  Dickins says, "At the end of a day, when I can go home or go to the studio, I still go down to the studio."

This proximity to creative people is "what's kept me alive," he adds. "It's what attracted me to doing the ZTT deal with Trevor Horn, to sanctioning the Anxious records deal with Dave Stewart, to bringing in  [A&R executives]John Coxon and Ian Stanley. I want that to be the direction of the company."

Source: unknown. Obtained from Warner Promotional Dept.