by Hawkwind (In Search Of Space, 1971)
Cream, The Clash, Jimi Hendrix, writers and film-makers all have associations with Ladbroke Grove, so too do Hawkwind. Centred around clichéd hippie values such as squatting, free gigs getting stoned and taking acid the band moved on from their proto-Hawkind psychedelic sounds when synthesisers became involved. The electric whirls and live improv sessions helped define the space-rock genre while feeding into/from the worlds of krautrock and prog rock at the same time. Dave Brock is the mainstay of the band seeing out many line-up changes and hosting, amongst other musicians, a pre-Motörhead Lemmy, Ginger Baker and Arthur Brown.
Written by Dave Brock and saxophonist/flautist Nik Turner 'Master of the Universe' became an almost permanent fixture in live performances. The vocals drone out lyrics of omnipotence over crunching, driving guitars, pounding drums and cosmic gleeps, gloops and whirps, all the while swirling distortion feeds in and out orbiting the aural expanse. The charging pulse hits reset a couple of times but only in order to build up an entirely new head of steam before evaporating into the ether.
AR
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