“I’ve got 30 years of albums and awards – but they say, ‘He’s just a one-trick pony making money off the back of Mike Oldfield’”: Robert Reed’s struggle to keep a form of music alive

Robert Reed.

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.