Hawkwind – Stories From Time and Space
Hawkwind – Stories From Time and Space
Cherry Red Records
Release Date: 05/04/24
Running Time: 59:11
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 8/10
As the day fades and the comforting, inky blackness of night descends upon the environs of the Calder Valley and Sowerby Bridge, Dark Juan is seated with a large mug of tea and wearing his Third Invocation Robes (Winter weight) as the weather still doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, by the window so he can gather the last vestiges of sunlight entering Crow Cottage and he waits for it to go dark so he can shut out the grim and uncaring world without and retire into the comfortable womb of his home. He feels a peculiar nostalgia for the young man he once was. Part of that young man’s development into the twisted, necromantic, misanthropic thing he became was the music that his dad used to play. Among the endless Reggae and ABBA that assailed the ears of the teenage Dark Juan (although dad was a fan of W.A.S.P after being played ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ and ‘L.O.V.E Machine’) there were certain gems that lodged themselves in Dark Juan’s subconscious – the likes of John Kongos and Gerry Rafferty and Cochise. Among them was also “In Search Of Space” and “Hawkwind” by the absolute originators of Space Rock, the almighty Hawkwind. To say this band has a stranglehold on Dark Juan’s imagination is like saying that Dark Juan enjoys a libation or two and describing rude things that he might, or might not, have done. Dave Brock is a treasure beyond compare in British Rock music and the sound of Hawkwind has embraced everything from the scuzziest of nascent Desert Rock, to straight ahead Metal (‘Night Of The Hawks’ especially springs to mind) to the most acid-addled of Hippie music and Psychedelia (‘Hurry On Sundown’, ‘Paranoia Part II’ et al) to early Electronic Rock (absolutely anything Dikmik went near) and of course naked ladies dancing. Thank you, Stacia. You made a teenage boy very happy.
Of course, they also did a song called ‘Orgone Accumulator’ and recently Dark Juan discovered, upon disappearing headfirst down an ill-advised Google rabbit hole after Mrs Dark Juan told him what one was, that an orgone accumulator is basically a stainless-steel wanking cupboard that focuses life (or orgone) energy back at the masturbator. Apart from this sojourn into pseudo-science, the importance of Hawkwind as a musical entity cannot be denied or ignored by anyone with a love of Rock or Metal, especially when you’re a teenager reading Michael Moorcock and then you discover he was also a Hawkwind collaborator, and that Lemmy played bass for Hawkwind once upon a time pre-Motorhead. Not to mention the fact that they spawned Hawklords and Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters.
It is with anticipation, then, and not a little trepidation, because I don’t want to have the Hawkwind of my youth tarnished by a sad modern take on this most seminal of bands, that I have called back the Platter of Splatter™ from whatever astral plane it has been operating on and slung on “Stories From Time and Space”. Is it hippy-dippy bollocks from a band of anachronisms, or is it a vibrant, accessible record from a true legend? Let us climb aboard the Space Express and find out together whether there are new galaxies and astral planes as we slide sideways through time…
The first thing that grabs your least-favourite ersatz rock hack is how modern and contemporary, yet how impeccably Hawkwind the band sounds on this record. The mix is fresh and easy to listen to, and everything gels together rather pleasantly, although there are missteps (‘Til I Found You’ sounds disturbingly like the soundtrack to a particularly arty porn movie at times, as does ‘Stargazers’, and these have none of the majesty of the likes of ‘The Tracker’ with its hard-edged guitar and insistent tempo), but these Dark Juan is prepared to forgive simply because he loves Hawkwind so much. The atmospheric electronics so ably employed by the band to create mood are well in evidence, with lots of swooping and swishing beneath the interplay of stringed instruments and there’s a whole, trippy element operating beneath the music that fits perfectly. ‘Underwater City’ is the best song to embody this, all acoustic guitar and shimmering waves of sound and no vocals – truly it does conjure up a city under ultra-strong glass, the inhabitants looking up to see the ocean swirling and churning as a powerful storm rips at it, yet all is serenity and calm beneath the surface. Dark Juan will always champion a band that creates cinematic images in his head, and Hawkwind have always had that capability. ‘The Night Sky’ is another piece on the album that eschews vocals for aesthetics – layer upon layer on synthesizers building an electronic ether you can’t help but want to explore.
‘Traveller Of Time and Space’ returns to more classic Hawkwind territory – slightly distorted, endlessly looped guitar and a Shoegaze attitude carry a rather more hippy-like lyric about a traveller in time and space (no shit, Sherlock) with computerised beeping and squelching beneath the reasonably straight-ahead Acid Rock song. Until the middle of it anyway, where Hawkwind go meandering off piste – confounding your good correspondent with what appeared to be a classic Hawkwind wandering around musical hinterlands middle section, but then develops into a fairly unusual Industrial tinged drawing down of the song that owes as much to Killing Joke in parts as it does to Gong and the Pink Fairies.
To summarise then: If you want blissed out grooviness that wanders off and explores concepts and runtimes that operate on a universal scale cut with the sharpness of Rock and Metal, Hawkwind are for you. However, they remain a challenging band as they frequently shoot off into the outer reaches of the cosmos in search of interstellar life and spend their time exploring nebulous electronic ethers as much as they do playing guitar and singing. Such is the way of Hawkwind – this is their magic. But it’s only magic if you dare to go with the flow. If you aren’t an experienced cosmic explorer, you probably ain’t gonna dig this. But Dark Juan thinks it’s bloody brilliant.
However, Dark Juan doesn’t think that “Stories From Time and Space” ranks among the top tier of Hawkwind classics. It is very, very good, don’t get me wrong, but Hawkwind have an enviable problem as a band – they have released “Doremi Fasol Latido”, “Space Ritual”, “Warrior At The Edge of Time” and many other classic albums. The endless question Hawkwind face is how do they top the fact that they have so many classics in their canon? The answer is that Dave and the band don’t even try, and it is that unfettered-by-their-own-history quality that makes sure that even a band as venerable as Hawkwind remains relevant and interesting. Their melding of the tropes of Space Rock (which they arguably created) and modern electronics still make the pleasure centres of Dark Juan’s brain light up like a fucking Christmas tree, and you can’t really ask for more than that from a band, can you?
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is still as deeply in love with Hawkwind as it has ever been and therefore awards this most venerable band of deep-space explorers 8/10. Marks were deducted because only really Hawkwind’s core audience will understand the peculiar majesty of this record, and because there really is a porn movie that could be made to fit ‘Stargazers’.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Our Lives Can’t Last Forever
02. The Starship (One Love One Life)
03. What Are We Going To Do While We’re Here
04. The Tracker
05. Eternal Light
06. Till I Found You
07. Underwater City
08. The Night Sky
09. Traveller of Time & Space
10. Re-generate
11. The Black Sea
12. Frozen In Time
13. Stargazers
LINE-UP:
Dave Brock – Vocals, guitars, keys and synths
Magnus Martin – Vocals, guitars, keys and synths
Thighpaulsandra – Keys and synths
Doug Mackinnon – Bass
Richard Chadwick – Drums, vocals, percussion
Michal Sosna – Saxophone on track 3
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
