Paradise 9 – State Of The Nation EP

Look here! Moments after noting in my Osiris The Rebirth review that I've still got punk rock running through my veins comes Gregg McKella's latest Paradise 9 record, proudly proclaiming itself, via a previous reviewer, as being "Hawkwind meets Joe Strummer" and firing off salvos in all directions. Of course, there's a story, perhaps apocryphal, that when The Clash first considered how to tackle their cover of 'Police & Thieves', Strummer's immediate suggestion was to "do it like Hawkwind." I nearly met him once – well, actually I spotted him on Taunton railway station and realised he'd been in the next carriage down from me all the way from Paddington, but such is my admiration that I'll forever chalk it down as having 'nearly met him' – I'd have loved to have asked him whether there was any truth in that one.

Someone else who it seems to me had a certain Strummer-like quality in being principled about his music and who is also sadly no longer with us has a more direct relationship to this new Paradise 9 offering in that he plays on a couple of its tracks and has a heartfelt tribute to him, written by Gregg, in its liner-note, was Judge Trev Thoms, probably best remembered by blog readers as a member of Inner City Unit. I didn't know Trev terribly well, but I wish I had. We talked once on the telephone, in an interview for Festivalized that unfortunately really came too early in the conception of the book and therefore was rather unfocused and didn't really relate to where the book went as it developed. I'd like to say that we knew each other across the ether – via e-mail and newsgroups – but that's not really what happened either, since we only exchanged a few messages, mainly when Trev was trying to drum up some interest in a revived Inner City Unit and thought it would be a good idea to try and get a retrospective feature published on the band, which was a sound idea but didn't come off, and once when I'd written press for the Barney Bubbles Memorial Gig, which he played at, and for which he sent me a very kind note saying that it was nice to have "professional promotional material for a change." So I didn't know him well and I'm sorry for that, really.

I think, though, that I've enough sense of him to understand exactly what Gregg means when he writes, of the EP's first track, 'State Of The Nation', that it was "great to get Trev [guesting on it] as this was right up his street." Indeed I can imagine that it was, punk-space-rock, three minutes twenty-five seconds so it's short and sharp and completely to the point but smart and catchy as hell as well and, as a new song written by Gregg, still just the epitome of the space-punk collision that Trev and Nik Turner and their cohorts in ICU had been playing back in the day. I bet Trev felt completely at home, righteously searing his lead guitar on this one and I'm bloody glad that it happened, and got recorded, and that it's out for us to revel in it. 'The state of the nation out of control / The state of the nation hitting an all time low'. Fucking great.

But Gregg's right to remind us that that was only one facet of what Trev's music was all about and was also spot-on in capturing Trev's "more reflective acoustic feel on 'Distant Dreams'. This one's another incredibly catchy piece, but more expansive and drifting, nearly seven idealised psychedelic minutes that lyrically riffs a bit on themes from In Search Of Space – oh, but Paradise 9 could in another life have been a really great Ladbroke Grove band of '69, '70 – and which captivates and enthrals in its dreamy haze.

Elsewhere here, 'Is This The Time' is a staccato cartoon-punk companion piece to 'State Of The Nation'; it's like this EP wants to travel back in time and be a vinyl release with a punk A-side and a psychedelic B-side. I wasn't as sold on this track, it just felt a little ordinary alongside the other tracks, though I can hear it being well-received live. Three out of four is a damned good strike rate though, and the 'other' psychedelic number here is a moody instrumental entitled 'Ocean Rise' with some pensive bass from Neil Matthars and what I guess is Gregg's clarinet giving a contemplative, even mournful, characteristic to the piece.

I like what they've given us here, but I love that they've made it in part such an articulate representation of Trev's musical qualities and that it takes such positive influences from him.

Paradise 9 Website

Osiris The Rebirth - Lost

Dave Adams and Miles Black were founder-members of Hawkwind tribute act Assassins of Silence and that made me a little cautious in approaching their regenerated incarnation of Dave's 'other' space rock project, Osiris. Now, before we all splutter coffee across our collective keyboards let's clarify that. Actually, I only managed to catch Assassins of Silence once, and that was on a night where the sound was somewhat 'challenged', but they struck me as highly entertaining and very good at what they were doing and I'm sorry that they don't seem to be playing their Hawk-covers around Oxfordshire and the Home Counties anymore as I'd certainly have liked to have caught them again. But, and here's the catch that generates just that modicum of caution in approaching Osiris The Rebirth, I do hear a lot of stuff that's so beholden to, or in awe of, Hawkwind that it fails to have its own vision and doesn't really breathe through its own lungs or beat with its own heart. I sometimes wish that there were more out there who'd take Hawkwind as a starting-point without then having to use their work as a finishing point as well; I want to hear more bands spotting where Hawkwind are on their musical map without then being rooted and routed to them as the only grid co-ordinates. So, members of a Hawkwind tribute band play their own space rock ... danger of unimaginative derivativeness ahead? As it happens ... absolutely not!

Actually, I'll give public thanks to these guys for sending over a couple of records that indeed have some themes and delivery styles in common with Hawkwind but who've very much struck out on their own path, building around the band a revolving set of collaborators and constructing a very smart brace of concept albums that owe something to you know who ... but which owe much more to these guys being excellent musicians with a keen sense of their own musical identity.

Their latest album is Lost, which I'll comment on in moment, but for perspective Milo also kindly sent me over a copy of their first, Remnants Of Life, and as we should start as close to the very beginning as possible – pausing to note that the very beginning would take us much further back, into the 1980s and Dave Adams's Osiris band from which some of his original material has been reworked here – let's think about what this part of their journey delivered, since Lost takes them off onto a different tangent in a lot of ways.

Remnants Of Life appeared in November 2009, featuring guest appearances from Nik Turner, Bridget Wishart, viper violinist Cyndee Lee Rule, and former Assassins keyboardist James Hodkinson among others. It's the certainly the more tangibly space rock of the pair, at least on first listen, kicking off with a spoken-word sequence, 'Phase Transition Initiate', that echoes 'Ground Control to Pilot' from Captain Lockheed, which appeared as the taped introduction to 'Ejection' in many Hawkwind shows, right down to 'the little white ones...' before heading out into the expansive sounds created by the busy drums and spacey guitar lead of 'Colgate Valentine'.

It's a vividly realised record, one that reminds you just how vibrant and wide-ranging this genre can be, as though Adams and Black are casting their eyes what's been done before, what could be realised in the future and what tangents and side-paths might be explored. At one point ('Siren') it seems that they've hit on a similar formula to Danny Faulkner's Pre-Med albums, all urgent keyboards and driving bass lines – dynamic, contemporary and highly charged - and at another they've let Nik Turner loose with some lovely and haunting flute music for his own 'Osiris' musings. They veer out of sci-fi and into fantasy, Kim Novak's strong and precise vocal delivery on 'Dragonslayer' repaying the sense of majesty that resonates within both its lyrics and music. 'Technology' I've tried hard to put my finger on – is it influenced by early Porcupine Tree? Perhaps in part, it has that progressive-rock feeling to it, and some über-geek lyrics, but in its instrumental moments maybe there's also a touch of Pink Floyd.

In fact, there's a lot that's hugely exciting about Remnants Of Life, much of which is pulled together and conceptualised in the sprawling fifteen minute final track, 'End Of Something', the sort of number that cries out for replaying just as soon as it ebbs away in its final moments: arresting, intriguing and properly immense. If it were a sci-fi novel, it'd be a doorstep-sized space opera page-turner. It's an album that I've played a lot since receiving, and which I'll absolutely be playing a lot more in the future. Spot on stuff.

Lost is less immediately accessible than I found Remnants... to be, and it's also a little less space rock and a little more veering towards progressive rock with an overarching storyline that works or doesn't work according to your liking for concept works – I'm not as negative as I would have been a few years ago, though I'll confess to still not always being hugely enamoured at albums that attempt to roll-up their tracks into one opus idea, I'd guess that I've still enough punk rock running through my veins to want to be saying, "Give me a song .... Give me another song ... and again". So this one took a little longer to grow on me than its more upfront and forthright sibling did.

But, and it's a big but, it's a record that does repay putting just a little more effort into getting to know and understand it, and I'm immensely glad that I've made that effort, played it several times and learned to appreciate its quality and its qualities. You'll note, of course, my own riffing around the idea of 'quality' and it's deliberate since this album is studded with high quality work – highly professional musicianship (I love the mix of pride and frustration that seems to exist so that where more high profile players will note their sponsorship deals, that leads these guys announce "Dave & Milo exclusively use instruments and equipment bought with their own money"), brilliant vocal performances and some damned good songs.

It's a concept album, the mystery of the strange disappearance of Osiris Spacelanes flight 2317 on a routine hyperspace journey – as noted in a Stephen Hawking-styled preamble. It hangs onto that story through its nine tracks, a bit Star Trek – Voyager in conception perhaps, realised through extended pieces that the guys reflect on having "musical experimentation ... yes, there is space rock but also perhaps a heavier prog influence ... an unashamed homage to early '70s bands such as Camel, Caravan, Focus and their ilk." These are smooth pieces, with the lyrics ably delivered variously by Bridget Wishart, Underground Zero's Jude Merryweather, Tina Thomas, and, again, Remnants Of Life's simply wonderful Kim Novak, whose contributions to both RoL and here on the opus 'The Mirror Of Her Dreams' are such a compelling component.

So Lost is Dave and Miles stretching their creative legs even further than Remnants Of Life took them, reaching into a sort of space-progressive rock hybrid that also touches on pastoral moments and times when they break loose and create a genuine cacophony of sounds (again here their twenty-four-and-a-half minute 'The Mirror Of Her Dreams' with some really mad violin from Cyndee Lee Rule and equally manic saxophone from Erik Michael Shroeder). That's where I am on the need to put a little effort into absorbing this one. The sum of its parts are individually very good – the deliciously seductive 'Kneel At My Feet', the anthemic 'Look To The Future' with its vaguely Stranglers-esque keyboards, 'Brave New World' which starts as a though it's a riff on Hawkwind's 'Dreamworker' before moving through a range of moods and textures – but it's as a suite of music that it really delivers so well.

In the end, then, I've come to this band and these albums with some reservations and concerns, perhaps with some prejudices, but going back to that word 'quality' again, it's the quality that resonates throughout both of these CDs, quality of vision, quality of writing, musicianship and vocals, quality of conceptualisation, sheer quality of the end result that's going to keep bringing me back to these albums and which will keep me wanting to hear where Dave and Milo's eclectic vision is going to take them next.

Osiris The Rebirth Website

This Planet Is Doomed - The Science Fiction Poetry Of Sun Ra

Kick Books Website

Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (Playback)

I've received a few invites recently to album playbacks – my remoteness from London generally precludes my acceptance – and they seem to be a developing method by which record labels will solicit reviews in the music press without distributing promo or finished products, generally I guess because of a fear of said music being leaked on-line in advance of the release date proper. Huddled together in a room, the massed ranks of music journalism receive a one-off advance listen to a major release, take notes and from that cut their text. I have to say I'm not particularly crazy about that since the label – artist – journalist relationship should entail a level of trust between all parties, and the methodology of proper criticism requires a more one-on-one intimacy with the work but I can understand the concerns and risks regarding promotional material.

That said, an invite came through recently that I found absolutely irresistible and which, despite being a new album playback, was very much removed from the listen-and-review concept since promotional copies circulated promptly after the date in question to enable reviews to be written from physical media. This playback was an opportunity to hear the new solo record by Porcupine Tree leader Steven Wilson, Grace For Drowning, in the rarefied atmosphere of AIR Studios in Hampstead and in the company of Wilson himself – an intriguing character whose artistic development since the formation of Porcupine Tree back in 1987 has been a fascinating journey. Can we describe him as the man who has legitimised progressive rock in the 21^st Century? It's certainly the case that he's worked with and within a maligned and arguably creatively near-bankrupt genre, giving it new definition and process, bestowing respectability and at the same time raising it to new levels, helping detail the road map for a sort of new progressive rock that's fresh, vivid, contemporary, forward-looking and yet which also looks back into the genre's past to find the parts that were exciting or innovative and in so doing reshaping those ideas for a modern audience.

I'll be reviewing the record itself in print elsewhere – really its two distinct albums released as a double-disc package: Deform To Form A Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye. Here, I'm really more interested in musing on the experience itself, since I've never been to something like this before and it's really quite a strange way of hearing and attempting to absorb such a complex work for the first time and listening back to the album at home I'm struck by the ways in which the experience of hearing a record differs through environment.

Grace For Drowning is indeed an intense sensory experience – I'd anticipated as much of course from reviewing Wilson's previous solo record, Insurgentes, a couple of years back for R2 magazine – and its first movement, if perhaps we could breakdown the two discs in that manner, or perhaps its first suite, is met with due deference among the collected reviewers ... at times I'm tempted to ask whether I should be stroking my chin in thoughtful supplication to the music but it's not really that, it's also that there is a herd mentality that may be subconsciously at work here – nervous glances around to see what others are making of what's being presented. I was once told a story about motorsports journalists who'd assemble at a Formula One test session, have myriad viewpoints of what they'd seen happening on track and in the pits but gather later over beer and sandwiches and from which process a collective viewpoint would emerge that resulted in many journalists across numerous magazines and newspaper back pages disseminating a broadly similar interpretation of what they'd seen. I wonder to myself if something of that unconsciously emerges from an album playback in a similar vein, generated from discussions across the plates of Indian snacks, piles of crisps and glasses of red wine that are consumed between discs and at the end of the session.

Listening now, I'm struck by how song-based the first disc is; I simply didn't hear it that way in the classical surrounding at AIR. Indeed, it has a lightness of touch within it that I didn't at all appreciate on first hearing it there. At time then, it must have been the case that the music soaked through the lyrics to such an extent that it became a wash of experimentalism and soundscapes – it's certainly true that one of the unusual experiences was found in hearing an album with a printed tracklist handed out but no visual cue to where one track ended and another began from which you start to understand how important it has become to simply see where you are within a record. Can it be that textures compete for attention so that the most striking or powerful texture overwhelms those around it so that? What I took away from disc one back then is almost what I'm hearing in disc two as I write. So I have to consider, and I'm finding that this is really informative for a critic and part of the learning process of self-improvement, the value of first impressions and the way in which contrasting parts of an artistic work will compete for that initial feeling or view of the whole.

We mingle amongst the refreshments. I tell my favourite music journalist story, of a boozy liquid lunch with the late and so very much missed Carol Clerk and in return I'm told something that I think I already knew: that if I was only ever going to have one boozy liquid lunch with a journalist then, by God, I picked the right journalist to drink with on so many levels. I have an interesting chat with Marc Saunders of There Goes The Fear during which we are both delighted to get a brief word and a handshake with Steven Wilson himself. I talk briefly to Classic Rock's Dave Ling, and have a good chat with their reviews editor Ian Fortnam.

I leave Air Studios in the grey drizzle of what regretfully constitutes an English summer in the 21^st Century and head vaguely off uphill in search of Hampstead underground station where I'll met my Crouch End-based sister for an excellent pizza in a Pizza Express that can't do coffee that evening due to a malfunction on their cappuccino machine – and where we'll ponder whether the concept of instant coffee has not yet reached these parts. As I struggle into a waterproof jacket while trying to avoid my overnight bag coming into contact with the wet pavement and wondering whether I'm on the right road to reach the Hampstead tube I spot someone who looks as though he must be a local coming in the opposite direction. I think of asking him the way but, and bear with me here as I can't do his seemingly Polish accent and neither can I write in one, I'm instead asked whether he is on the right road to AIR Studios. I point out the way and ask, "Is this for the Steven Wilson playback?"

He confirms that is indeed his destination. "Steven Wilson," I say in return, raising a thumb to the prospect. "Excellent!"

Later, I'm standing in the entrance to Hampstead underground. The drizzle has turned into a sharp, heavy downpour. I'm approached by another person seeking directions. I must look more local than I think. "Do you know where Pentameters Theatre is?"

I ask if he's heading to the performance of Robert Calvert's Mirror, Mirror which commences a month-long run that evening – I'd have gone to see it, but I didn't know how long to allow for the playback and any potential networking as a result of it.

He confirms that is indeed his destination. "Robert Calvert!" I say in return, raising a thumb to the prospect. "I've no idea where Pentameters is, but Bob Calvert ... excellent!"

Grace For Drowning

Hawklords Autumn 2011 UK Tour

Oct 13th. Liverpool. O2 Academy. 11- 13 Hotham St, Liverpool, L3 5UF. £15.
Doors open: 7pm. Under-14s with adults only.
Box office: 0844 477 2000/www.ticketweb.co.uk
http://www.o2academyliverpool.co.uk


Oct 14th. Leeds.
The Irish Centre. York Road, Leeds, LS9 9NT. £12 adv, £14, door.
Box office 0013 248 9208 (cash or cheque only) or 0113 245 5570 (credit & debit cards).
Doors open: 7.30pm.
http://www.theleadsirishcentre.co.uk


Oct 15th. Glasgow.
The Ferry. 25 Anderston Quay. Glasgow. G3 8BX.
Adv, £14.50 (plus booking fee). Door, £16.
Box office: 01698 360085/www.ticketsoup.com
Doors open. 8pm. Support act: Whimwise.
http://www.the-ferry.co.uk


Oct 16th. Edinburgh.
The Queens Hall. 85- 89 Clerk Street. Edinburgh. EH8 9JG.
Box office 0131 668 2019. £15.
Doors open at 7pm. Support act: Dyonisis
http://www.thequeenshall.net


Oct 18th. Leicester. O2 Academy. University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH. £15.
Under-14s with adults only. Doors open at 7pm.
Box office: 0844 477 2000/ www.ticketweb.co.uk
http://www.o2acdemyleicester.co.uk


Oct 19th. Wolverhampton.
The Robin 2, Bilston. 26 - 28 Mount Pleasant, Bilston, Wolverhampton, WV14 7LJ.
£12.50 adv, £15 door. Doors open at 8.45pm.
Box office: 01902 401211/www.ticketweb.co.uk.
http://www.therobin.co.uk


Oct 20th. Oxford.
O2 Academy. 190 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1UE.
£12.50. £15 door. Under-14s with adults only. Doors open at 7pm.
Box office: 0844 477 2000/www.ticketweb.co.uk
http://www.o2academyoxford.co.uk


Oct 21st. Mansfield.
The Diamond. 47, Stoney Street, Sutton-In-Ashfield, Mansfield, Notts, NG17 4GH.
£10. Doors open at 7pm.
Box office: 01623 456617/http://thediamonduk.com


Oct 23rd. Leamington Spa. The Assembly. Spencer Street, Leamington Spa, Warwicks, CV31 3NF.
£15. Doors open at 7pm.
Box Office: 01926 523 001/www.seetickets.com
http://www.leamingtonassembly.com


Oct 25th. Plymouth.
The White Rabbit. Unit 14, Brenton Bus Station, Plymouth, PL4 0BG.
£11adv, £11.50, door. Doors open at 8.30pm.
Box office: 01752 268 801
http://myspace.com/whiterabbit_uk


Oct 26th. Poole.
Mr Kyps. 8a Parr St, Lower Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, BH14 0JY.
£11 adv, £12.50 door. Doors open at 8pm.
Box office: 01752 268801
http://www.mrkyps.net


Oct 27th. Chislehurst. The Beaverwood Club. Beaverwood Road, Chislehurst, Kent. BR7 6HF.
£12 adv, £15, door. Doors open at 7.30pm.
Box office: 0208 761 9078/www.feenstra.co.uk
http://www.thebeaverwoodclub.co.uk


Oct 29th. London. O2 Academy Islington. N1 Centre, 16 Parkfield Street, London N1 0PS.
The Hawklords Halloween Hells-a-poppin' show! Prizes for best costumes - judged by the band!
Support act: Gunslinger.
£15. Under-14s only with adults. Doors open at 6pm. Curfew at 10pm.
Box office: 0844 477 2000/www.ticketweb.co.uk
http://www.02academyislington.co.uk



Check with venues before travelling.

Evel Gazebow

Though I've still got a MySpace page I've joined the ever swelling ranks of those who've basically abandoned the concept; its social networking facilities were long ago surpassed by Facebook and I see a slew of user-friendly sites that have overtaken MySpace for ease of music delivery so it seems to me, as I know it does for many others, a rather redundant method of getting music to the masses as it were. I guess, then, that other on the rare occasion I'll log-in to check any messages that might have arrived, I'm now only visiting there if I'm specifically direct there – in this instance because of an e-mail from Evel Gazebow's Graham Davis asking me to check out their music.

London-based Evel Gazebow are Graham on guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, writing and production alongside Did Dilley who provides drums, vocals, and percussion and they advise that they've been performing Hawkwind's Space Ritual, in its entirely, "complete with space poems, back projections and scantily clad dancer." They've even provided their rendition at The Royal Academy of Art for an event curated by Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner that was billed as The Psychosomatic Acid Test.

What they've made available on their MySpace, however, are their own songs. "We drew inspiration from listening to some of our all-time favourite bands," they tell us. "Pink Fairies, The Deviants, Hawkwind, Gong, Amon Duül, Edgar Broughton Band, Syd's Floyd... we've tried to keep some of the 'stoned, lazy feel' evident in the music of all of those bands [but] we've also added some additional 'stoner – punk – kosmische – folky – pop – eastern – electro' stylings, and some Zappa / Mighty Boosh-esque humour." That's as sharp a summation as any of what these guys are up to here with their collection of lo-fi but evocative demos.

They've eleven tracks available on-line. 'A Message To Your Mind' starts with what I'm guessing are backward tapes before launching into a insistent and imploring slice of psychedelic fuzz with a really mind-melting groovy and jamming instrumental break; 'Little White Dress' has an infectious Eastern motif that runs through an otherwise quite whimsical number. 'Invisible Tractor' is very 60s Hippie stuff featuring a robust bass line punctuated with bright splashes of keyboard whereas 'The Times They a-Changed' has Hawkwind sci-fi effects leading into cosmic lyrics and again some nice Eastern tinges but doesn't really distinguish itself with its rather generic psychedelia even though it has a sweet sound. 'Bubbling Under', however, delivers exactly what its title suggests... a spacey, drifting and, yep, bubbling, dreamscape with an oceanic splash at the end that is really quite infectious. I liked that one a lot.

After that interlude, 'Swordfish 2010' gets all pulse-pounding space rock with punk rock vocals and a roving bass line before 'On The Edges' invents the whole new side-genre of alt.space.folk.country; 'Secret Door' is more improvisational fuzz-laden music with a 60s vibe to it, all bright lights and mini-skirts and which invokes for me those strange cut in and cut out cinematic effects that used to be so beloved of directors who wanted to visually demonstrate just how hip and happening the 60s and early 70s were. 'Lost Tribe', 'What Happens If' and the deliciously-named 'New Free Sex Chocolate' complete proceedings, all three are hard rocking space rock numbers.

This is very decent stuff. In all honesty it's a bit derivative in places, or put another way, it wears its dual enthusiasms for psychedelic whimsy and fuzz-laden jamming on its sleeve as a badge of honour, but it does have a lot of dynamics and appeal and is certainly worth hooking up as a playlist and listening through or grabbing a free download that they've made available.

Evel Gazebow MySpace Page

Evel Gazebow Blogspot Download

Sendelica – The Pavilion Of Magic And The Trials Of The Seven Surviving Elohim

I've written about the prolific musical activities of Pete Bingham and Glenda Pescado previously on this blog, including an interview a year or so ago with Pete, and reviewed recent Sendelica releases for R2 (The Girl From The Future Who Lit Up The Sky With Golden Worlds) and Record Collector (Streamedelica She Sighed As She Hit Rewind On The Dream Mangler Remote) ... or was it the other way around ... but despite the releases coming fast upon each other, a real outpouring of improvisational ideas, it's always a delight, actually an event, to receive the next one. Long, meandering and absolutely obscure title? Check! Neu!, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd influences? Check! Krautrock and space rock sensibilities cut through with a refreshingly contemporary vibe? Check!

The Pavilion Of Magic... comprises seven new tracks plus their excellent and luxuriously exotic cover of 'Venus In Furs' with Alice Davidson providing vocals which was originally issued as a 7" single by vinyl specialists Fruits De Mer in 2010 and another bonus cover, this time a delightful and very pastoral reading of Captain Beefheart's 'This Is The Day' featuring vocals from Molara. Those are great additions to the main event and a nice contrast to Sendelica's usual instrumental-only methodology, and both, for my money, better renditions than their take on 'Urban Guerilla' on Fruit De Mer's recent Roqueting Through Space LP - which is the only instance I can think of when I found myself just a little underwhelmed by what was delivered.

The main event itself though. First off, I loved guest saxophonist Lee Relfe's work on Streamedelica She Sighed... but Relfe's contributions here, on the sprawling and shiny 'Banshees & Fetches, and most particularly on the simply exquisite blissfulness of 'Arizona Spree', totally excels and is completely mesmerising.

'Zhyly Byly' opens proceedings, a muscular and strident composition with a definite Russian tone to it (the band have been out there playing live – and good friend of this blog, and someone very much at the forefront of Russian space and heavy psychedelic rock, Alisa Coral, mastered this album) that also for me has something of the feel of Hawkwind's 'Snake Dance' to it in places, whereas the next track, 'The Elohim' is a studied and pensive piece that seems to evoke something of Pink Floyd's Meddle in its tone and atmosphere. On to a couple of shorter pieces, 'Guiding The Night' and 'Orion Delight', the former another strident and relentlessly insistent number while the latter is a bright and uplifting with a definite vivaciousness to it highlighted by some lovely bright guitar work from Bingham.

We've touched on the next couple of tracks: I keep coming back to 'Arizona Spree' and just immersing myself in its idyllic layers but in addition, writing about it, I'm finding it to be a perfect companion piece to 'Orion Delight' in that each, in their individual ways, are enriching pieces that just have a feel-good vibe to them. The album 'proper' rounds out with the more experimental 'The Pavilion Of Magic' which, being honest, I found less engaging than what comes before and just a bit grey in comparison to the really inspiring compositions earlier in the record. And yes, I know we have to have texture and contrast but what I'm finding in the middle of the album is a mood that I don't really want to be shaken out of and that's probably why this one jars because it lifts you out of a state of mind – like waking up in the middle of a really nice dream to discover it is Monday morning. It pales in the success of what we've heard before simply because of the mood change that it invokes.

So that personal note aside, this is another terrific Sendelica album. I trust the aforementioned prolific outpouring will long continue! Like some of the previous Sendelica albums, this comes as a standard CD and as a CD + DVD package that includes 'Ritual', another in a series of films that marry striking visuals to Sendelica music, the band in aftershow jamming mode in Cardigan, and a promotional video for 'Banshees & Fetches'. I've fallen a little behind with blogging here due to print deadlines and a trip up to London to attend the playback of Porcupine Tree's Steve Wilson's new album at Air Studios – which I'll blog about during the week – so haven't yet properly sat down to watch 'Ritual', which is a 38 minute film of laid-back and calming soundscapes juxtaposed with imaginative and evocative visuals that deserves far more of a write-up than I can provide at the moment but which I'll revisit as part of a general blog entry in the next couple of weeks.

Something aside from this album that I should note here; the rights to Sendelica's earliest recordings have now reverted to the band and are available to purchase as downloads from the Sound Awesome Market Place here. This includes their 2007 debut album, Entering The Rainbow Light, their first ever release, Theowlshaveeyes EP and The Alternative Realities Of The Re-Awakening Somnabulist.

Sendelica Ordering Details

Leave No Star Unturned – Steve Pittis Interview

Here's the second in a sequence of chats with labels associated with current Hawkwind related releases. Easy Action Records will soon be releasing a live CD and a vinyl pressing of Hawkwind at the Cambridge Corn Exchange from January 1972; it's a show that's been rumoured to exist, talked about and even wrongly assigned as being featured on other live albums over the years. Soon we'll be hearing this highly dynamic and significant recording for ourselves, but in advance of the release here's a chat with Steve Pittis who, along with Carlton Sandercock, has been behind the acquisition of the source tape – the original recordings of which also includes sets by The Pink Fairies and The Syd Barrett Last Minute Put-Together Boogie Band. I started by asking Steve about his own interest in Hawkwind:

Hawkwind, and all things like that, have been a constant for me from the early '70s onwards. It goes back to school days and In Search Of Space, or X In Search Of Space as it was. I'm not going to go all 'Pistols at the 100Club' and say 'I saw them at the Sundown', because I didn't; the first time I saw them was on the Warrior On The Edge Of Time tour at the Southend Kursaal because, let's face it, I was too young for my dad to let me go to Edmonton! But it remains, without a doubt, the best gig I've ever been to, that incredible 'being in outer space' feeling. It just takes me back to school days and borrowing each others' Glastonbury Fayre and Greasy Truckers records. Just before Doremi... came out we were all fanatics, to the point of going up to London, to Shaftesbury Avenue and knocking on record company doors with our squeaky voices, asking 'Have you got any memorabilia... photos... stickers?' The kindest to us in those days was this wonderful woman at United Artists who was trying to shove the Flamin Groovies down our neck but we wanted Hawkwind and walked out with some fantastic memorabilia, such as photos, and I had an original 'one sheet' for 'Silver Machine' which I've still got. So when I was old enough to tell my old man that I was going to this gig, I went! But, alas, I missed the Space Ritual and stuff like that.

Now, this Cambridge tape has been rumoured and talked about for a long time, hasn't it? Different things have come out that have purported to be this show, and aren't, and now you've sourced this tape we have the confidence and the provenance to say really is this show, so tell us the process that enabled you to acquire this reel?


It was on auction at Bonhams. There was a piece in Record Collector to say that it was expected to sell for around three and a half grand and Carlton and I spoke about it. The auction was on June 24^th last year, but unfortunately I was unable to go to London and Carlton was away. We were going, "We really want this, it's got the Syd thing, it's got the Fairies, Hawkwind, we really want this." Now, difficult to clear all of this stuff [for release], so we just concluded we had to let it go and if it sold, then it sold. But it didn't sell so I suggested to Carlton that he make the guy who was selling it an offer on the basis that if it wasn't used as a stick to beat anyone else with we'd close the deal, and he went along with it. I met him in a pub in the West End and he handed over not only a reel to reel but studio transcriptions of them on CD-R and I went home wondering how we were going to clear them, which is Carlton's department! So he's been in touch with Russell and Sandy of the Pink Fairies and we thought that would be the first to come out but he also knows Nigel Reeve at EMI, spoke to them and yes the Hawkwind element was their period so got it cleared without any problems.

It's important to have that legitimacy...

I completely agree with you, it has to be made clear.

What have you had to do with the tape to master it for release?

Well, the tape was originally not very high volume, very warts and all; Patrick Bird [PSB Music, London] did the mastering and did a splendid job but he phoned me and said, "There are various sounds on there like tapes rewinding and things, I'll get rid of those," but I said, "No! Don't get rid of those, that's all part of it." There's some left and right phasing, that disappears from one channel to the next and back again, which there's not a lot that can be done about. But I whacked it into mono, which didn't eliminate those sounds. We could have dealt with that using cut and paste but I didn't want that at all. The EQ is so such better than the tape I originally bought, Patrick's brought the volumes to the right levels and it sounds like... well, it sounds like it has been mastered. It's so much better. But, I really didn't want to destroy the integrity of it by messing around with cutting and pasting. I'd rather have something disappearing from one channel to the next and leave it where it is, and I've added something at the last minute to the booklet to explain that. What I'm saying is that Patrick has done a wonderful job on this tape, and we could have cheated but as a Hawkwind fan I wouldn't want that and I'm absolutely certain that others wouldn't also.

When you get a historic document like this, you want to know that you're hearing 'front of house' on the night...

Absolutely. It's not a four-out-of-ten recording from a cassette recorder in somebody's pocket. It's not Text of Festival or Yuri Gagarin, it's a very good recording and, yeah, it needs to be the document that it is. I was quite surprised because the guy who sold it said, "I don't think it's the whole show," so I was delighted when it just went on and on and the encore came in and it was everything, the whole show, a really pleasant surprise.

It sits quite well with the pending EMI Parallel Universe collection; they have a very early 'You Know You're Only Dreaming', almost a busker-number, and what we have here in early 1972 is another development of it again, different than In Search Of Space.

I thought it was the precursor when I heard it, but of course this is 1972, but there are no vocals and yet obviously it is that track but I'd never heard it in that way before. On 'You Shouldn't Do That', the whispered 'shouldn't do...' parts sound almost off the beat, on a different part of the rhythm, almost like the monitors weren't working properly and they were doing the wrong bit at the wrong time but then the 'do that...' chorus is right, so it's really weird and gives it a different tinge again. And the obvious 'Silver Machine' being different to the Roundhouse version, with the Calvert vocals and it just blew my mind, as a fan, thinking "I don't care about the cost... I can hear this!" It's a real find!

So much so that there's going to be vinyl release alongside the CD...

I can die a happy man with a Hawkwind vinyl release! I'm in the process of getting the artwork done for that now, it'll be the same front cover but there will be coloured inner sleeves, coloured vinyl, really decent heavy gloss laminated board... make it something beautiful. Realistically that will be a good month after the CD I'd say but I really intend for it to look fantastic.

Can we touch on the Pink Fairies and Syd Barrett tapes?

The Syd Barrett... Syd's on it, Twink's on it... lots of people. I think clearing that with all those guys and Syd's estate it's, let's put it that it's going to be a long job and there's no short cut to a record label for that one so it does have to be the people and it only needs one person to say "I don't want it coming out," and that's it. The Pink Fairies, I'm working on that one for a project with various tapes that I've got. There's a Pete Drummond show that's never been released, so we could do a 'Cambridge plus expanded rarities' box set and we'd hope Rich Deakin, who wrote the Fairies book, would be involved with that...

No better person to be involved!

Exactly... so time will tell with the Syd tape, the Fairies will appear I'd imagine, as long as we can get their agreement.

Easy Action Records

Hola One & Subterminal - Tangency

If some of the music I've been writing about here might be described as the aural equivalent of wandering around the 'space race' section of the Science Museum in London, all rockets and technology, hardware and spaceware, equipment and dreams that are modern, even futuristic, and yet retro and abandoned at the same time, then Tangency, to continue the metaphor, is like an hour spent prowling Tate Modern as an artistic layman. Some of it impresses, some of it baffles and some of it is just bewildering – contemporary, vivid, experimental, challenging. Though it has nothing in common with their music, it resonates with me when I think of The Stranglers and their 'Aural Sculpture' declaration on the Feline LP, not because of content but because of the texture the idea of an aural sculpture itself suggests. And, though again I'm associating a concept outside of its actual definition with the work that's been laid down, carved even, on Tangency, I'd like to suggest that these tracks are almost akin to a continuous tone poem.

So, not our usual fare then. It's a collection of electronic sounds with intoned words where the sounds have a sheen to them that's like opaque glass, a sort of smooth surface but without an immediate transparency to it. Introverted and repetitive rhythms dominate giving the atmosphere of the album a thoughtful and sometimes softly calming aura and it's interesting that on occasion the same track is presented in instrumental and spoken-over or intoned form, which, perhaps because of the reclusive nature of the music, builds on the suite's sense of being a continuous thread.

I'd have to say that the predominate feeling that runs through is one of something that's relentless in being digitally emotionless... that sort of clinical coldness of expression. 'Dark and cold...' breathes... whispers... Bridget Wishart, making a guest appearance on 'Frozen City Ghosts' and in fact that statement seems to be the reflection of much of what infuses and informs these compositions.

It's a record, then, that isn't going to provide immediate gratification or instant access to its intricacies. When I first heard it I found it demanding, almost standoffish in a way, as though it had its secrets that it wanted to maintain internally, rather than give outwards to the listener, but that's not really it, of course. It's more that it wants you to inhabit its soundscapes, it wants you to come inwards and feel the construction, be part of its chimes and rhythms and, perhaps, to be an explorer of its icily crystalline caverns. It's that it would ask you to question what it's about, to challenge it and consider its nature … in that way the opening analogy, that it's the Tate Modern's evolving collections of contemporary questioning, open to myriad of readings and meanings, in comparison to our regular fare's rockets and hardware, seems to be to be a rather apt summation of this quite intriguing work.

Tengencias

Hola One

Parallel Universe – Nigel Reeve Interview

Nigel Reeve of EMI has been involved with their custodianship of the Liberty / United Artists Hawkwind catalogue for over fifteen years and has been a driving force behind EMI's various Hawkwind releases including their remasters project, the 1999 Party and the recent Hawkwind at the BBC double-disc. As part of a short sequence of chats with the people behind current Hawkwind releases I caught up with Nigel just as EMI prepare to release Parallel Universe, a three-disc compilation of existing and previously unheard recordings from the 1970 -1974 Hawkwind era which is going to thrill Hawkfans with its selection of alternate mixes, alternative versions, a cut of the rare 'Take What You Can', and a previously unknown track entitled Hog Farm.

I started on this set about five years ago, thinking about what I might be able to do because I'd gone so far with Hawkwind that it seemed there was very little else I could do. Then, a couple of years ago, I came back to it, had a look again at the tapes and thought, "Hang on a minute, there's some stuff here that doesn't seem to add up." But it took another year before I went into the studio and played them, checked to see what we were dealing with here, and that's where some of these things came from. Some of them were absolute revelations to me… I did a little bit of research on-line to see what the fans knew, and of course I know the catalogue pretty damn well myself, but there were things there that nobody knew about and I couldn't understand how this stuff had never made it out. It just seems to be that whatever happened, these tapes stayed in our vaults over the years and kind of got forgotten about until I started delving a little bit deeper and, bingo, these tracks came to light. That gave me the impetuous to finish the set and cover that period in one hit.

What was the thinking regarding releasing these recordings alongside established catalogue tracks?

I wanted to put it into context because the original set was going to be some kind of 'complete period', all of the stuff from 1970 – 1974. But there was nothing particularly new for the fans until I got these recordings, some alternate versions and various other bits and pieces, and I thought the best way to do it was to give the fans those tracks but also, because Hawkwind pick up new fans all the time, have one set that gives them a snapshot of that period both released and unreleased with the key tracks from that era. I thought that was the way to go, it just struck me as the way to capture both the current fans and the possible new fans that are going to come to the band.

In terms of assigning these tracks to recording dates and line-ups, how robust is the archival data that might exist alongside these unearthed recordings?

There is a chronology that I've written for the set and there is also the label copy so any dates that I've been able to get from the multi-tracks are noted and there is a list of line-ups for that period as well, so in fact all of the pieces of the jigsaw are there and most of the dates are absolute fact but there's a couple where, say, they are definitely recorded during [the sessions for] Doremi... and so during the early part of a particular month but for which I can't give a specific date.

What sort of condition were the tapes in? We hear stories of tapes being 'baked' to retrieve their contents...

They were great, no problem at all. The stock was always good stock; it was only a little later that tapes used would have caused problems. When we pulled the tapes up, none of them needed baking, they were all fine.

When you hear these alternative versions, like 'You Know You're Only Dreaming' which gives a completely different take on what the band were doing in those days, or 'Wind of Change' which is so different from the released version... it's really exciting stuff isn't it?

Very much so. You can hear how the band was developing. 'You Know You're Only Dreaming' is very much along the lines of 'Mirror of Illusion' or 'Hurry On Sundown'; there were bits and pieces that were coming in from the live show, but the live show of the time was pretty much just the rest of the first album, got up and jammed. So you can hear there are ideas coming along there, but perhaps the band weren't quite ready to go down that route and it took until a little bit later, until In Search of Space, when they finally did. It's interesting that 'Kiss of the Velvet Whip' appears around the time of In Search of Space, a more formed version than the earlier one and you can hear that it's something they wanted to do but it took them that time to get it right. 'Wind of Change' is listed on the multi-track as being 'Rock Around the Clock' so I'm playing the tapes wondering, "What's this? Is it really 'Rock Around the Clock?' No, it's this alternate version of 'Wind of Change'. It's clearly early in the sessions, elements of that early version were taken [for the final cut], but it stands on its own, it's very powerful and that justifies putting it out.

That's pre-Simon House joining I guess?

I believe it was.

People speculate about tapes that may or may not exist, things like the Edmonton Sundown gig that was in part used for Hall of the Mountain Grill. What can you say about other items that might reside in the archives?

We do have other things but unfortunately things like the Hall of the Mountain Grill tracks are noted as being 'live' but that's just the basic track with overdubs done later. On the Space Ritual tour, Sunderland was recorded before they made it to Brixton but there's a fault on the recording and whatever you do in the mixing you're just not going to be able to retrieve it. So that's the problem, there are live multi-tracks and I've been through them all but it's very difficult to piece them all together and there's just not good enough recordings and / or performances, certainly nothing better than what is already available. I posted on your blog the other day because someone asked why don't EMI do something with Warrior on the Edge of Time and suggested the tapes were missing so I'd just clarify the point that it's not ours anymore, much as I'd love it to be, and that the tapes aren't missing because we have them. It was on a separate contract at the time, under licence to us and then reverted to the band.

In those terms, when you did the Hawkwind at the BBC set last year, that could have been more expansive but only if you went for lower-grade recordings?

That's right. I did research for stuff but it was pretty shocking and no matter what work you put in you can only go so far with these things. We spent a lot of time with the engineer cleaning up the live tracks, making them the best we could, but we couldn't get anything out of the session stuff that would have justified giving it back to the fans again, they've already got it... okay it might not be great but I didn't feel we could improve upon it.

What was the thinking behind releasing the dual versions of the In Concert show, the mono and the stereo?

It came out by accident really; the Windsong package was the mono version and needed a clean-up and so I asked the BBC for another copy of the tape and actually what they sent me was the stereo, which they hadn't logged, so I had the two versions and by their very nature of being mono and stereo there was quite a lot of difference. While the mono from Windsong was going to sound better than it had before, the stereo had only circulated before as a bootleg and so I could do a better job with it and give the fans the choice, the best of both worlds.

EMI have done a fantastic job on their portion of the catalogue; where the rest of the catalogue, before the Cherry Red 'buy-out', has had a bit of a chequered history, EMI have been exemplary in the way they've maintained the availability of a band that, with no disrespect intended, are now a bit of a 'niche'. Where do they sit in terms of importance to EMI?

Really, I drive that interest at EMI. I first started working on the catalogue in 1996 with Tim Chacksfield when we did the digipac remasters. Every now and then I've looked at it to see how things are going and seen good opportunities to do something. The interest, apart from the personal interest, is that the band have a steady audience that buy, I mean we're not talking huge amounts, but what we are talking about is a solid figure that tells us that if we put out a Hawkwind package we're going to be fine.

I've just got to say "thank you" for doing such a great job on this anthology, it's a joy to listen to and it really illuminates this part of the band's career. It's a great job that's been done.

From my point of view it was a joy to have done it and finished it, particularly from having a completely different idea of this set five years ago. It's been this thing on the back burner, the BBC set came and went in the mean time and then these tapes gave me the impetus to finish it and I'm really pleased. I'm not sure there's anything more I can do now, unless something really exciting turns up, but it's a really nice way to sign-off.