I picked up a cheap copy of Hawkwind’s Space Ritual from a 2nd hand CD shop yesterday. I’m listening to it now for the first time as I’m working. My thoughts, in chronological order:
Shit. The cats have pissed on my speakers again.
Or maybe my tweeters have blown.
Let me guess. Lemmy mixed this.
Were they performing in a missile silo?
Were the recording microphones even in the same room?
Is this live? There is no hint of an audience.
These aren’t really ‘songs’ are they?
Are all these songs just Silver Machine? (Checks cover: none of the songs are Silver Machine)
Fuck yeah!! (Puts CD on repeat)
I could perhaps do without the camp sub-Dr Who spoken interludes, and I’d ask the bloke on the widdly space noise machine to maybe give it a rest every now and then, but this is an intoxicating listen and I’m sorry I didn’t pick it up earlier.
Out of curiosity, I listened to a track.
Crikey!
Sonic attack, indeed…this is what you get when half of the band are on psychedelics and the other half are speeding…
If you’re only going to buy one Hawkwind album…The Space Ritual is it…
…but this is what you REALLY wanted…
Can you imagine the smell of that tour bus?
From the album credits:
Nik Turner: Pointless flute.
Strangely I have never dared embrace Space Ritual, but I love the first four studio albums, especially In Search of Space. And the widddly space nose machine is aces. (Dik Mik, was it?) In space everyone can hear you widdle.
Yes for me ISOS is perfect ‘wind.
Be bold, Retro: you’ll love it – especially if you like widdly space noises…
Love a bit of Hawk.
1977s Quark, Strangeness and Charm was probably their last great album.
While I never bought one of their albums, this brings back happy memories of the band (and Stacia) doing this song when they played my local Locarno ballroom in the spring./summer of 1972. What a terrific night
I realised that Robert Calvert’s interludes sound exactly like Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. And now I can’t un-realise it. Space Ritual is ruined for me.
I love it, and the flute (better than Nik’s sax skronk) and the poems are also a vital part, lightening the peak-trip intensity and riffage. Harvey Bainbridge’s poems in later Hawkwind incarnations add greatly to the space-rock ambience. The widdly synth bloops are non-negotiable. Robert Calvert was a tremendous front-man and I still miss him. I will admit that the studio version of “Master of the Universe” is better than the Space Ritual one, though. A free copy should be given with all purchases of the legal magic mushrooms now available in Oregon and Washington DC. That would wean the yanks off the Grateful Dead and jam bands for something proper.