Crises

Crises is the eighth record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1983 on Virgin Records. Oldfield's well known hits "Moonlight Shadow" and "Shadow on the Wall" appear on the album.

The title track of the album is a twenty minute long piece, featuring a small amount of vocals, sung by Oldfield. The beginning and end of the track are driven by a synthesized lead passage, stylistically similar to the opening theme to Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

The album also features the massive hit "Moonlight Shadow", sung by Maggie Reilly, who also sang and co-wrote "Foreign Affair". "In High Places" has lyrics by Mike Oldfield and Jon Anderson. "Shadow on the Wall" has vocals by Roger Chapman. The album includes "Taurus 3", a short fast-paced guitar piece unlike the previous two long multi-themed "Taurus" tracks featured on QE2 and Five Miles Out respectively.

Oldfield toured the album between May and July 1983 throughout Europe.

The album was recorded between November 1982 and April 1983 using an Ampex ATR 124 tape recorder, a Neve 8108 with Necam console, and Westlake Monitors, in Denham, England. Oldfield used a Gibson SG Junior for overdriven guitar sounds and a Fender Stratocaster for clean sounds. Tama Drums were Simon Phillips' brand of choice for drums on the album; Phillips also did some production work. Oldfield makes extensive use of Oberheim and Fairlight keyboards.

Asked how he recruited Chapman and Anderson in an interview, Oldfield answered "we just hang out in the same bar". The "Moonlight Shadow" single from this album includes the rare track "Rite of Man". The North American version of the album has a different running order and includes the single "Mistake".

In 2000 along with Oldfield's other Virgin Records albums it was reissued in HDCD format, and was reissued again by Mercury Records in the 2010s. In 2013 Oldfield revealed that he used Avid Pro Tools on an Apple Mac to remix the album in 5.1.

The album's cover art was by Terry Ilott. Oldfield makes reference to the artwork with the line, "the watcher and the tower, waiting hour, by hour" (printed in the back cover of the LP, and sung by Mike Oldfield on the title track). In the interview mentioned before, Oldfield stated that "I´m the man in the corner, and the tower is my music".