Repertoire (label)
08 October 2014 (released)
16 October 2014
Another one of the excellent CD/DVD issues from the Rockpalast shows of the seventies, this one catches Brit-psych legend Steve Hillage at his creative peak.
Having come up through the ranks of the Canterbury scene with Uriel and then moving on to the legendary Gong, Hillage released his ‘Fish Rising’ solo album while still with Gong and this catches him after the release of his second album ‘L’.
Visually this isn’t a treat – Hillage’s long hair and white pyjamas look unbearably dated – but musically it’s another story; the band are completely in sync with Hillage and with each other and Hillage one of the most fluid and dextrous guitarists around.
From the opening ‘Salmon Song’ you get the full treatment with Miquette Giraudy’s and Basil Brooks synths and Phil Hodge’s keyboards creating a swirling aural miasma that Hillage and Christian Boule could play within while Hillage’s vocals are ethereal enough – coupled with Giraudy’s ‘little girl amazed’ exclamations – to create wonderful images in the listener’s mind.
That leads into ‘Hurdy Gurdy Glissando’ with former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker and Colin Bass on bass creating a heavy and funked up beat for the rest of the band to jam around and fly into the psychedelic heavens. Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ loses a lot of the wistfulness of the original but gains some great playing.
On ‘Solar Musick Suite’ and ‘Lunar Musick Suites’ the aural pictures are suitably ‘spaced out’ but one is struck by how the music is almost orchestral in its exposition of images and action.
‘It’s All Too Much’ ratchets up the pace and the pop sense of the music but ‘Aftaglid’ and ‘Electric Gypsies’ bring back the heightened atmosphere before the show finishes on a remarkable ‘Not Fade Away’ with Bunker setting up a Bo Diddley beat and Hillage soloing over the top.
Steve Hillage is (and was) a remarkable musician and this captures him at a peak. His face is wreathed in joy through most of the show and it is almost impossible to come away without a smile and a lighter step
