Hawkwind: Tales From Time And House

Hawkwind: Tales From Time And House

(Cherry Purple Information)

DOUBLE VINYL | CD | DL | Streaming

Launched April fifth

Purchase Tales From Time and House

Scorching on the heels of their acclaimed 2023 album The Future By no means Waits, the quintessential UK underground rock group are again with an exuberant space-rock epic.

The place do you even begin with Hawkwind? Catapulted from the late ’60s/early ’70s Ladbroke Grove-based freak scene instantly into provincial dwelling rooms all through the UK by the exceptional success of their chart-topping 1972 single Silver Machine, the space-rock pioneers have evaded a descent into Basic Rock stultification by continuously evolving, the group’s frequent line-up adjustments and explorations of latest instructions pushed by chief Dave Brock’s unbounded musical curiosity. Affectionately known as ‘The Captain’ by the group’s legions of followers worldwide, Brock has been the one fixed all through Hawkwind’s lengthy and generally turbulent historical past.  The Future By no means Waits discovered Brock and the notably high-quality present line-up on the prime of their recreation, delivering an album bursting with inventive vitality and beautiful songcraft. With the group’s talismanic drummer Richard Chadwick retaining all the things collectively together with his understated however extremely kinetic rhythms, guitarist Magnus Martin, bass-player Thighpaulsandra (AKA Tim Lewis) and bassist Doug MacKinnon had coalesced as probably the most sympatico line-ups in Hawkwind’s epic historical past.

If The Future By no means Waits seemed that this configuration of Hawkwind was motivated by the sheer pleasure of jamming and exploring new musical avenues collectively, that impression is just enhanced by this expansive follow-up. Whereas The Future By no means Waits discovered the group reflecting with wry humour and a contact of disappointment on the mis-steps of the human race that Hawkwind have been warning about for shut to 5 many years, in distinction Tales From Time and House is a full-bore, epic space-rock voyage that makes use of intergalactic exploration as a metaphor for the journey by way of life itself. Entrance-loaded with a sequence of Brock-penned bangers, there’s little doubt that this, their thirty sixth studio album, is on one stage a reflective celebration of The Captain’s private odyssey.

Opening observe Our Lives Can’t Final Perpetually is an aesthetic, Peter Hammill-esque ballad during which Brock displays on human mortality. Laudably, there isn’t a try to strip away the wealthy nuances of age from the Captain’s vocals, within the method of Mick Jagger’s pitch-corrected and de-fanged vocal performances on final yr’s new Stones album. Brock will flip 83 in August this yr, and Tales From Time and House attracts a lot of its poignancy from his continued lust for all times and wide-eyed surprise on the universe and its mysteries.

The Starship (One Love, One Life) units the tone for what’s to comply with with its buoyant propulsion and sheer joi de vivre. “Use your life effectively, don’t waste it away”, Brock advises, because the band cook dinner up a euphoric psychedelic swirl round him. “Girls and gents,” the nice Captain proclaims, “we’re heading for Galaxy 117” (apparently referencing a lenticular galaxy within the Cetus constellation, astronomy followers).

What Are We Going To Do Now We’re Right here follows, a marked change of temper and one of many standouts of the 13 tracks on this engrossing album. Saxophonist Michal Sosna visitors on the observe, persevering with the very welcome jazz affect that was a characteristic of The Future By no means Waits. Following a powerful instrumental build-up, Sosna’s sax solo units up an air of reverie earlier than the group crash right into a ferocious cyber-punk groove harking back to 1982’s very good Select Your Masques album, pushed by a brutal Brock guitar riff worthy of the late Stooges guitarist, Ron Asheton.  Iggy Pop himself lauded Hawkwind on his BBC 6 Music radio present final yr, enjoying a number of tracks from The Future By no means Waits and recollecting that Silver Machine was one of many few songs he favored on the radio when The Stooges have been in London recording their third album, Uncooked Energy, in 1972. This large observe must be a shoo-in for airplay on one in all Pop’s exhibits and can hopefully make the set-list for the group’s upcoming tour.

Subsequent up, The Tracker is a basic Hawkwind space-rocker, pushed by an virtually Beatles-esque descending chord development. An atmospheric linking observe, Everlasting Mild, leads into one other album spotlight, the Brock/Martin composition Until I Discovered You, which is successfully Half 2 of Exterior of Time from The Future By no means Waits. When you suppose that sounds a tad self-indulgent, you’re flawed; Until I Discovered You is a gloriously trippy love tune that immediately shifts tempo and accelerates away (presumably in the direction of Galaxy 117) in probably the most thrilling moments on the album.

Followers of Brazilian guitar music from the ‘70s might discover that Magnus Martin’s beautiful guitar instrumental Underwater Metropolis evokes the spirit of Bola Sete’s masterful Ocean album (1975); maybe this shouldn’t be such an surprising twist, provided that Tropicalia co-creator Gilberto Gil reportedly jammed with Hawkwind throughout his exile to London in 1970, alongside together with his shut buddy and co-conspirator, Caetano Veloso.  Hawkwind’s myriad influences are sometimes under-appreciated, however they’re all dropped at bear on this gloriously freewheeling album.

Brock’s atmospheric instrumental The Night time Sky leads into the album’s centrepiece observe, Traveller of Time and House, a blissed-out story-song with an virtually Spacemen 3 really feel in locations. Re-generate once more brings to thoughts Select Your Masques-era Hawkwind, earlier than the darker temper of The Black Sea leads into the sweeping melodicism of Magnus Martin’s Frozen In Time, the guitarist’s vocals displaying a folks affect harking back to early Brock compositions. The closing space-jazz jam, Stargazers, is one other prime instance of the inventive vitality that this distinctive group of musicians generate when enjoying collectively, with all concerned reducing free and dropping themselves within the second, to nice impact.

With Hawkwind’s present run of peak kind within the studio displaying little signal of abating, the current information that their subsequent album is close to completion will delight followers. On a much less joyful word, the group’s official Fb web page just lately indicated that, following the group’s upcoming spring and summer season UK live performance dates (listed under), there aren’t any plans to guide any extra Hawkwind exhibits, resulting from well being causes.  Footage from final yr’s Royal Albert Corridor live performance confirmed the band in supreme kind, so this might be the final likelihood to see England’s most influential and prolific underground rock group of their pure setting.

As Captain Brock states bluntly on the opening tune of this massively pleasant album, “our lives can’t final eternally”.  Regardless of the future might deliver, Hawkwind look set to stay a dynamic inventive pressure to the top.

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Purchase Tales From Time and House

Hawkwind are on Fb and the online.

UK tour dates:

Wednesday third April – Wulfrum Corridor, Wolverhampton

Thursday 4th April – Academy, Manchester

Friday fifth April – O2 Metropolis Corridor, Newcastle

Saturday sixth April – O2 Academy, Edinburgh

Sunday seventh April – O2 Academy, Glasgow

Monday eighth April – Mandela Corridor, Belfast

Saturday fifteenth June – Northern Kin Pageant, Durham

Friday sixteenth August – Discussion board, Bathtub

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All phrases by Gus Ironside, 2024. Extra writing by Gus could be discovered right here.