Album Club
07-01-2014, 00:19
Martin(T) has given us another classic album offering for this week - thanks, Martin.
Don't forget to listen to the album in full before you vote and if you want to vote you should make some contributory comments too please.
Hawkwind - Space Ritual (1973)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61RZ8q8arfL.jpg
Spotify:
spotify:album:7wH3vXQZgy9a6PUvMXLayk
Back in 1974, when I was still in fifth year at school, a mate lent me Space Ritual as we were very much into vinyl swapping. Wow, a sleeve that opened up into a giant poster and FOUR SIDES of psychedelic, trippy music that just connected with me. Possibly even more so than either Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath, both of whom had captured my teenage mind. These were mostly extended pieces where I could close my eyes and really go somewhere else, interspersed with hypnotic poetry by Michael Moorcock. I never understood why more friends didn't like it. All of the trappings of Hawkwind's mystique came to me later, such as Stacia and Lemmy's leaving. I finally saw them twice during my university days.
So how can I persuade you to give it a listen and hear what I heard then? The live recording is crap - nothing more to be said there (although it does repay good playback gear or just playing loud in the car). The music, however, still works for me after all these years. Largely taken from the Doremi Fasol Latodi album, the live performances are more homogeneous, more together and just work better. More melodic than Tangerine Dream, more space trippy than Floyd, long and dreamy and with moments, like Sonic Attack, that predate many a great SF novel.
I find it difficult to quantify exactly why this album has always been on my playlist. Possibly because I am a dreamer and love large-scale SF such as the novels of C J Cherryh, Stephen Baxter and Iain M Banks. One of my ten desert island albums.
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Space-Ritual-Hawkwind/dp/B00A6F9YRY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1387887379&sr=8-4&keywords=Hawkwind
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ritual
YouTube:
MPISXvQwm_E
Don't forget to listen to the album in full before you vote and if you want to vote you should make some contributory comments too please.
Hawkwind - Space Ritual (1973)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61RZ8q8arfL.jpg
Spotify:
spotify:album:7wH3vXQZgy9a6PUvMXLayk
Back in 1974, when I was still in fifth year at school, a mate lent me Space Ritual as we were very much into vinyl swapping. Wow, a sleeve that opened up into a giant poster and FOUR SIDES of psychedelic, trippy music that just connected with me. Possibly even more so than either Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath, both of whom had captured my teenage mind. These were mostly extended pieces where I could close my eyes and really go somewhere else, interspersed with hypnotic poetry by Michael Moorcock. I never understood why more friends didn't like it. All of the trappings of Hawkwind's mystique came to me later, such as Stacia and Lemmy's leaving. I finally saw them twice during my university days.
So how can I persuade you to give it a listen and hear what I heard then? The live recording is crap - nothing more to be said there (although it does repay good playback gear or just playing loud in the car). The music, however, still works for me after all these years. Largely taken from the Doremi Fasol Latodi album, the live performances are more homogeneous, more together and just work better. More melodic than Tangerine Dream, more space trippy than Floyd, long and dreamy and with moments, like Sonic Attack, that predate many a great SF novel.
I find it difficult to quantify exactly why this album has always been on my playlist. Possibly because I am a dreamer and love large-scale SF such as the novels of C J Cherryh, Stephen Baxter and Iain M Banks. One of my ten desert island albums.
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Space-Ritual-Hawkwind/dp/B00A6F9YRY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1387887379&sr=8-4&keywords=Hawkwind
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ritual
YouTube:
MPISXvQwm_E