concerned that being an solely digital recording, it would sound too "angular". As a test, a copy was made onto recording tape using Dolby SR, a type of noise reduction, which he thought produced some nice results but greater loss of clarity. The liner notes contains a foreword by Clarke about the development of his book, from short story to novel. He ends it with a note about the album: "Since the finale of the novel is a musical concert, I was delighted when Mike Oldfield told me that he wished to compose a suite inspired by it. I was particularly impressed by the music he wrote for The Killing Fields and now, having played the CD-ROM of The Songs of Distant Earth, I feel he has lived up to my expectations. Welcome back into space, Mike: there's still lots of room out here." CD-ROM content Oldfield faced difficulty in writing music to the story at first and needed some "in between space" to help visualise it. This was alleviated when he received a copy of the 1993 graphic adventure puzzle game Myst for the PC and was impressed with the graphics, which greatly influenced his decision to have 3D computer-generated video accompany the music for the album on the Enhanced CD format, combining features of a standard CD with CD-ROM content. The result was graphics that Oldfield had in his mind while writing the music. Oldfield felt contemporary music at the time of recording lacked any real excitement, but felt the reverse as he worked on the interactive technology. This, and his interest in Myst, sparked his wish to make his own game that helped the player on their own spiritual development. While composing for the CD-ROM Oldfield had trouble adapting a theme by Jean Sibelius for it, which turned into a rage where be "banged out a theme. Like a sort of miracle, it worked!" The CD-ROM allows users to travel through a futuristic city on board a spaceship and towards a central control system, inside of which houses a musical tower. The user must answer a musical puzzle which provides a series of options that trigger a different song on the album. Release The album was released in the UK on 21 November 1994. It went to No. 24 on the UK Albums Chart and reached gold certification by the British Phonographic Industry. Its US release followed