What does it sound like?:
Those who like Hawkwind can be pretty uncritical, whereas those who don’t definitely compensate for that generosity of spirit. This compilation is probably gtreen kryptonite for Abba and Adele-listeners, as much as those artists often repel Hawkwind fans. Greater minds than mine have asked will happen when Hawkwind are no more? Will there be a tribute act? Will space rock return? You’d think it could, particularly if there are exciting revelations about alien life, missions to Mars, mining of asteroids, etc, capturing the imagination of noisy geeks who like an occasionally bifter.
The unappreciated aspect of Hawkwind is their range, and the unfamilar listener could easily say “It’s Hawkwind, Jim. But not as we always know it”. Which Hawkwind? They have produced 34 studio albums. This excludes the 12 live ones, including the incomparable and possibly immortal “Space Ritual”. Folk, psychedelic, progressive, proto-metal, almost-punk, rave, tribal native American, electronic, orchestral, or what? This 6-CD compilation takes most of the well-known tracks plus deep cuts, single versions, and the occasional live recording, as well as definitive tracks – the “Master of the Universe” here is the one from “In Search of Space” where Lemmy’s bass thrums and pulses outside the synth swoops, and still evokes THAT metallic taste in my mouth, and a recognition that it would be best to not have much to do for the next 6 hours. Compilations lead to inevitable economies of thinking, as not everything can be included, and someone is bound to be upset. But still, no “Reefer Madness”? No “Damnation Alley”? The Huw Langton-Lloyd semi-metal phase is represented well, though I would have liked a juicier version of “Angels of Death”. Hawkwind are not beyond re-working old tracks, and they could have had “Assassins of Allah” to show how they updated the mighty, earlier (and present) “Hassan-I-Sabbah”. Similarly, “Looking in the Future” (from “Church of Hawkwind”) reworks “Assault and Battery” (also present), itself half-inched lyrically from Henry Wadswoth Longfellow’s “A psalm of life”: let nobody be pissy about Hawkwind’s intellectual and cultural basis.
Coverage of later albums has to be selective, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though again one man’s Leb is another man’s Nepalese Temple Ball (we are talking pre-skunk days here, man). I personally always liked Harvey Bainbridge’s Davros-styled poetry, which seemed to convey the right sort of atmospheres of space rock and the madness which might emerge if you were trapped in a small space craft for several years, suddenly faced with the incomprehensible, but there was only a littrle of that here. But we do get a gem in “Space is their Palestine”, Hawkwind’s adoption of Arabian-Nights type rhythms which is as effective as the above-mentioned and included “Hassan I-Sabbah”, along with the subtly-named L.S.D., and “Love in Space”. Again, economies of content, as there was only room for 6-CDs worth of music. There is supposedly a bumper booklet, but this was not available in the downloaded review copy.
What does it all *mean*?
Hawkwind are now on their 16th compilation. Given how so much of their material is on different labels, you understand efforts at integration. But at almost £40, the newbie could equally get “Space Ritual” and the “Charisma years” box set, and have a lot of the key material – plus have change to put towards subsequent purchases of “In Search of Space”, “Doremi Fasol Latido”, “Warrior on the Edge of Time”,”Levitation”, etc. However, if you want a single cross-era dip, this is fair enough.
Goes well with…
Your favourite recreational substance, whether that be a cup of tea, or something more exotic. Best heard in a room with posters of science fiction novel covers on the wall, a steaming incense stencher, and a grubby lab coat with a pictures of an alien “grey” and a badly drawn dope leaf.
Release Date:
December 10th, 2021
Might suit people who like…
Gong, Steve Hillage, Ozric Tentacles, Tool, Here and Now, Spacemen 3
Love Hawkwind but not enough to own 40+ live/studio albums. This box will do for me.
Nice review Vincent.
It’s actually Dave Anderson playing the bass on Master of the Universe. He maintains the riff was his but didn’t get a writing credit for it. He stayed just long enough to record In Search of Space but was gone by the time it was released.
Gosh, I didn’t know that. Shame on me. Thanks for the clarification.