“If Space Ritual is the blistering star in the firmament of Space Rock, then (X) In Search of Space must surely be the proto-planetary disc”. Hawkwind’s associate Rob Godwin’s opening liner notes to this incredible reissue that Atomhenge has unleashed of Hawkwind’s second studio album, In Search of Space says it all. Originally released on the United Artists label on October 8th, 1971, it marked a turning point for the band as they were about to embark on the next chapter in the band’s career.
This 2-CD / 1 Blu-Ray set consists not just the original mix of the album remastered, but it includes Stephen W. Tayler’s remix on the second disc of the album who had done the new mix of the band’s finest live album Space Ritual, and the upcoming re-release of the follow-up to In Search of Space, Doremi Fasol Laitdo coming out in November of this year from Atomhenge.
So, not only it includes that, but in the large booklet, it contains the Hawkwind log, designed by the late Barney Bubbles, which tells the story behind the album about an ancient spacecraft that had been abandoned for many years, is discovered on the moon, and the impact itself, creates this massive examination that the archeologists to discover the ship’s log, top to bottom.
“The spacecraft Hawkwind was found by Captain Robert RN Calvert of the Societe Astronomae (an international guild of creative artists dedicated in eternity to the discovery and demonstration of extra-terrestrial intelligence) on 8 July 1971 in the vicinity of Mare Librium near the South Pole”. Calvert’s science-fiction story was way ahead of its time, he was pushing the boundaries on what he was going to do when he joined the band the same year the album came out.
There are elements of the stories that you would read from Heavy Metal magazine, The Time Flowers, radio dramas of X Minus One, Escape, and Dimension X, its right down and front. Tayler’s remix flows perfectly. From his remixes that he’s done from Van der Graaf Generator, Be-Bop Deluxe, Renaissance, Camel, The Moody Blues, to Barclay James Harvest, his new mix on In Search of Space takes you, right in center to hurl through the cosmos like you’ve never heard it before.
It beats out the 1996 reissue which I hate to say, that version which came out nearly 29 years ago, sounded a little too quiet. But what Tayler has done is to combine the whirling swooshes for the band to come right in front of the listener’s face and reveal their piste di resistance. The album’s opening track ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’ can be found as a jam session originally. It was called at one time, ‘We Do It / I Do It’.
The key ingredients between the sound of preparation for blast-off with the sound of an oscillator and a VCS3 setting up the jump to light-speed. You feel the rumble, you feel the preparation, Dave Brock’s chugging riff, Dave Anderson’s heavy bass temperatures, Terry Ollis’ intensive drum work, and Nik Turner’s wah-wah sax improv, everything starts going according to plan.
The complexity behind ‘You Know You’re Only Dreaming’ makes it very potential when they bring the VCS3 to create the loneliness in space. Brock’s solo invents the possibility of calling back home to earth to receive signals from the spacecraft while Ollis takes a gentle approach and Turner’s wind instruments pumps up more volume through an audio generator.
We all know that the live version of ‘Master of the Universe’ from Space Ritual beats out the studio version, but Tayler’s remix knocks it out of the park. You hear a bit of static for a few seconds, then the sound of generators ascending higher and higher before the roaring rocket engine kicks it into high gear with Brock’s metallic riff and Anderson following him to the state of complete madness.
Turner’s sci-fi lyrics and his trusty wah-wah sax improv in the midsection, speaks volume. He puts his life on the line to go in for the kill while the rhythm section gives him carte blanche by being the leader of the new spacecraft that waits for its fellow bandmates.
After the first four tracks, Dave returns to his busking years with his 12-string acoustic guitar for ‘We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago’. Beginning with this Dylan-sque lyrical texture, guitar picking, space folk-like structure, the vision of a city gone horribly wrong, you can imagine a young Ken Levine might had listened to this album to see what he was going to do with BioShock in 2007.
‘Adjust Me’ is more than just a proto-punk arrangement, its one of the band’s improvisations of someone who’s on the brink of insanity with the vocal line going into hyperdrive. It was the first track according to Godwin’s liner notes, to use narration. There are some elements to ‘Three Blind Mice’ in the piece, but nods to the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint it Black’ thrown into the blender.
Closing track is Brock bringing out his acoustic guitar once more to give the last rite to its fellow archaeologists on ‘Children of the Sun’. The reason it was thrown in because there wasn’t enough material to finish the album. So, this song was done at the last minute to finish the piece. Tayler’s remix runs a few seconds longer than what the original mix was brought on to the kitchen table. There’s more of an extension to close out the track and brings the story to an end.
The five bonus tracks which include ‘Hog Farm’, ‘Kiss of the Velvet Whip’, ‘Seven by Seven’, and their hit single which featured Lemmy Kilmeister on vocals, ‘Silver Machine’. ‘Hog Farm’ sounds like a crazed-out session Amon Duul II would have used during their time between Phallus Dei, Yeti, or Tanz Der Lemminge, or one of the sessions Aphrodite’s Child could had done for 666 with Koulouris’ killer guitar work.
I wouldn’t compare it to the early Floyd because that would be too much of a cop-out. The track originally appeared in the 3-CD set Parallel Universe: A Liberty / U.A. Years Anthology 1970-1974, released in 2011. It definitely has a jam session the band could’ve had added in during the sessions for the second album.
When you hear that guitar going up and down the fret board, you can almost hear elements of Tangerine Dream’s ‘Ultima Thule’ for a brief moment on the introduction to ‘Kiss of the Velvet Whip’. How do you come up with a title like that? How do you come up with that?
That’s Hawkwind for you. Despite as a 1969 demo, there’s no denying in which Brock, Anderson, and Ollis were doing during the recording sessions. Clocking in at 12-minutes, Brock and Anderson take jabs with their instruments going into this punk-like orientation as Turner’s wah-wah sax sets up the adjustments to go into a Velvet Underground motif that caught me off-guard, paying tribute to ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’.
‘Seven By Seven’ which was released as a b-side on June 9th, 1972, had many versions since it was unleashed. Tayler’s new mix has various elements. Between Brock’s loud lead vocals, along with Calvert’s spoken dialog, he brings it to the forefront to give Dave all of his might to push his voice so hard, you know he’s going out in a blaze of glory.
But it’s the closing track to get your engines up and running once more for an extended intro Tayler has brought in with the synths for the revved-up version of ‘Silver Machine’ which would later be covered by the Sex Pistols and later VOIVOD, this is the track that introduced to the world of Lemmy (post-Sam Gopal, and pre-Motörhead) as he soars through time on this track.
The 68-page booklet contains alongside The Hawkwind log, the original master tapes, promos, liner notes, bills of the band were on between the Pink Fairies, Van der Graaf Generator, Writing on the Wall, and Juicy Lucy, it includes a 2-page sci-fi comic book written by Michael Moorcock (The Eternal Champion, The Dreaming City, and The Time Dweller) who would be a contributing factor to Hawkwind’s lyrical structures entitle, The Sonic Assassins which was featured in a November 29th, 1971 issue of a UK underground magazine called Frendz.
Cherry Red has knocked it out of the ball park with this fascinating parcel that’s waiting for you on your doorstep.
