LOVE IN SPACE

My fave Hawkalbum outside the 70's work. No frills, but in your face psychedelic droning by the powertrio, plus excellent scifi stories delivery by Ron Tree. Though it's mostly based on sequences, it sounds very organic and rocks like hell. I saw it twice live, and also visually it was stunning. The 90's were good, since Langton left and Space Bandits, and this was the culmination. Too bad the band broke up after that.

This is truly worth total 5 stars, and I think that "Love in Space" could be stated as "The Space Ritual of The 90's". Everything works here perfectly, the aestetichs of sounds, compositions, songs, playing, dramaturgy and even album covers. HAWKWIND is truly a weird band; While great part of their albums are absolute rubbish, the good ones are then true masterpieces. Buy it when you see it! There's also a neat vinyl version of this album moving around.

This review is about the DVD version, the tracking-list is almost similar to the 2-CD set only a track entitled "Alien" is added. From the very first moment Hawkwind impresses with propulsive space-rock, loaded with heavy guitar riffs and spectacualr synth sounds, this in combination with a stunning live-act (dancers, light-show, screen projections). Many songs are harder-edged, almost punk ("Death trap", "Blue skin", "Xenomorph") but other sound spacey/cosmic ("Photo encounter", "Vega", "Kapel" and "Elfin") or hypnotizing ("Are you losing your mind"). The final track "Assassins of Allah" features an Eastern climate with sitar sounds and great dancing. The highlights on this DVD are the titletrack (soaring organ, fiery electric guitar and a strong build-up, compelling atmosphere) and the mega-hit song "Silver machine" including a heavy guitar-intro and spectacular light images, the crowd is going wild! THIS IS AN EXCITING SCOUTING OF SPACE ROCK, PUNK AND ELECTRONICS!!

The promise of 'Alien 4' is truly realized in this live restructuring of the album, with the story trimmed down to its essentials and some earlier Hawkwind classics thrown in to boot. The band are firing on all cylinders here, with great versions of 'Blue Skin' and 'Love in Space', although all the 'Alien 4' tracks are improvements on the album versions. A nice snapshot of early 90's Ron Tree led Hawkwind.

This is a seriously good live album. Ron Tree is an excellent addition to the band and the song selections are fresh and not too backward-looking (well, there's plenty of old classic stuff elsewhere). A lot of the tracks are taken from their Alien 4 album, which in itself is a slightly flat affair. Not here though. This album is vibrant, veering between driving rock and spacey ambient. Actually, if you can hold of the DVD you will not regret it. Ron Tree looks even better than he sounds! Plenty of great tracks on offer here: Tree doing a good tribute to Calvert on Death Trap, Davey giving a good Sputnik Stan, then Tree again on Robot and a very good Xenomorph. Tree on Silver Machine is also top, top, top! Yes, Hawkfans, this one's a winner.

I only came across this album as part of the Atomhenge re-release series and am heartily glad I did, for this is now my second-favourite live Hawkwind album behind Space Ritual.

Ron Tree adds a sense of theatricality not really seen or heard since Calvert left and his light voice (plus well-judged effects) works really well with the material, which mixes the very good stuff from Alien 4 with some great versions of old favourites plus the new-at-the-time and totally majestic Love In Space.

It's hard to believe that there are only three instrumentalists playing here, but the drumming's great, Alan Davey's bass growls away and Mr Brock is in fine form (layers of synths partly live from Brock and Davey and partly pre-programmed fill in to great effect) and the balance between old-style riff-thumpers and ethereal linking instrumentals creates a great atmosphere - I'd have loved to have been there when the band start cranking up into Silver Machine, which doesn't show its age at all.

The Atomhenge release adds the essential Alien (I Am) after Robot on disc one, a rather leaden studio version of Love In Space, a lively Lord Of Light and Sonic Attack at the end of disc two.

Hailing from what probably goes for Hawkwind's least popular period, Love In Space is an amazingly solid Hawkwind live album.

The bulk of the material stems from the Alien4 album, an album with strong songwriting but poor production standards. It had that typical early 90's plastic midi keyboard sound that made it too clean and sterile. Not this live album though, true rocking drums are solidly in place and the bass and the guitars sound much more forceful.

The singer in command of the spaceship is still Ron Tree, a kind of Calvert clone that misses both the diction and vocal talents of Calvert. It makes him the weak link in this recording but it's not so bad that it distracts from the enjoyment. But still, if anything could be improved here it's his vocals.

The songs and instrumentals are all great and make for a nicely flowing concert, varying ambient passages with groovy space drones. The songs of note are Sputnik Stan, one of the Hawks best songs from the 90's. It's sung by Dave Brock which gives it automatically that vintage Hawkwind feel. Also Robot is a nice to have if you skipped the inconsistent PXR5 album from 1979. Alien is another great Brock-fronted track from Alien4. An essential Hawkwind track if you wouldn't have it yet.

The song that this live album is named after is Love In Space, another highlight of 90's Hawkwind and much better here then the awkward semi-techno version appearing as an extra track on some issues of Distant Horizons from 1997. The concert ends with a medley of the Arabian-tinged Space is Their from The Business Of The Future and the unavoidable Assasins of Allah (Hassan I Sahba)). A powerful ending as usual.

It might be a bit hard to find now but I was lucky to be in deep Hawkwind trances when this was released. If you haven't explored 90's Hawkwind yet, I would greatly recommend this one or The Business Trip as a start.

Hawkwind - Love In Space (1996) (live)

Last week I bought a vinyl copy of Hawkwind's legendary Warrior on the Edge of Time. I began to read more about the band on PA and found some high rated live albums, Love in Space being one of them. Space rock is a genre that is spread out all over the archives, one will find good examples on the Krautrock, Canterbury, Symphonic and of course Psychedelic/Space rock pages. Hawkwind is seen as the main band of the space rock genre, playing and developing it for forty years.

Though the ratings of their eighties and nineties output in the studio are low, the live material is still very good. Love in Space is an eighty minute live concert in which the stream of sound is continuous (which is good!) and the listener is overwhelmed by it's atmosphere. The sound of synthesizers, electronics and effects gives the band a warmth sound, whilst the rhythms and blues rhythmical section sounds very steady and professional. The styles Hawkwind has used for it's interplanetary rock experience differ from symphonic, electronic, metal to even punk. Often song have spoken work elements with sci-fi stories that are kind of cool (or at least funny). Furthermore Hawkwind uses voice-manipulation for robotic/alien sounds.

This is the kind of live album that doesn't have many stand-out songs, but the overall performance and continues space atmosphere is very relaxing. It's a great way to get out of your normal life and enter a totally new world. I like the fact Hawkwind takes itself quite serious and pulls of a dedicated show which clearly shows that the band is confident about it's view on music.

Now, this album might not be extremely progressive in the technical or compositional areas of music, but it's pretentious (80 minutes of non-stop space atmosphere!), refreshing, it has lot's of great synthesizers and electronics and it has a sophisticated un-earthly vibe. I think a lot of fans of the symphonic and space genre might be surprised by this outstanding live album, as well as fans of other sub-genres of our beloved PA. A big four star rating.

I've been listening to this album quite a lot, usually when traveling by train. This has become one of my favorite live albums and I think Eetu Pellonpää was right when stating this is perhaps the legal and equal sequel of Space Ritual. I changed my rating to five stars.

It's hard to belive the band is down to a trio at this point with Alan Davey on bass and keyboards, Dave Brock on lots of things (haha) oh and he plays guitar, keyboards and synths, and Richard Chadwick on drums. Ron Tree was brought in because the band felt there was no focal point in the centre of the stage when they played live. He was bursting with energy and ideas and really wanted to join the band so he was hired. Ron really had this fascination with alien abductions and he had lots to say on the subject so the band decided to do a concept album of sorts on the subject. It was called "Alien 4" and this live album "Love In Space" was the tour for it. Ron dressed up as an alien and read these bits and carried on in a theatrical manner."The resulting tour was spectacular. As well as a first class set of songs and instrumentals, fans were treated to a lightshow, dancers and fire-eaters, plus a specially made, curved screen over the set, which gave the illusion of the band playing beneath a flying saucer". The music here draws heavily from "Alien4" in keeping with the concept but they do play some favourites mostly at the end of the show.

"Abducted" opens with the roar of the audience as spacey synths come in then spoken words describing the spaceship that he's just been abducted to. It's interesting to listen to the words on this album because the aliens also get in on the conversations but in a higher pitched voice that we all know aliens have. "Death Trap" kicks in right away to an uptempo rocker. It settles late and blends into "Wastelands" which is very spacey and quite beautiful.

"Are You Losing Your Mind ?" has these spoken words around a minute then they are kicking ass a minute later. "Photo Encounter" has these choir-like sounds reminding me of mellotron plus these spacey sounds that come and go. It blends into "Blue Skin" where it kicks into gear before a minute.Vocals follow.

"Sputnik Stan" is spacey to start then it kicks in before a minute followed by vocals.The bass and guitar sound great when the vocals stop as they jam. "Robot" is from the "P.X.R.5" album from 1979. Strange synth sounds here in this mid paced track.The music and vocals follow. "Alien (I Am)" is spacey early as it builds and spoken words come in around 1 1/2 minutes. It kicks in a minute later and we get some excellent guitar from Brock. More spoken words before 5 minutes. Disc two opens with "Xenomorph" which doesn't kick in until before 1 1/2 minutes.

"Vega" features these spacey waves that roll in and out throughout. I love it. "Love In Space" has some keyboards early on then guitar before a minute followed by vocals.TANGERINE DREAM-like electronicss around 4 minutes then the guitar returns before 7 1/2 minutes. "Kapal" has these different sounds that come and go. Interesting stuff. Spoken words 2 1/2 minutes in. "Elfin" is spacey with atmosphere.

The last three songs that end this album are older tunes. "Silver machine" is of course a classic then "Welcome To The Future" has these spacey waves with spoken words to end the concert.The encore is "Assassins / Space (Is Their Palestine) which is the prefect way to end it. Amazing !

A solid 4 stars for this one and really an important document for the die-hard HAWKWIND fan.

Hawkwind live albums don't really have a middle gear. Either they're horrible - terrible sound quality bootleg and might-as-well-be-bootleg crap tossed out onto the market for a cheap buck - or they're fantastic, regularly upstaging their studio albums, This was especially true in the 1990s; at the same time as a range of horrible bootlegs flooded the shelves and Hawkwind's studio albums were, at best, decent experiments in coping with a limited recording budget, they produced material like The Business Trip and Love In Space.

Love In Space is almost a sequel to The Business Trip; it's got the same balance of rocky and New Age electronic material, the same flow, the same production aesthetic. It also has Ron Tree adding a bit of energy as front man, and a track list with only a very, very few overlaps with The Business Trip. It neatly absorbs the alien conspiracy theory concept of their then-current studio album, Alien 4, into the wider substance of the Hawkwind canon, picking songs from other albums (and previewing Love In Space from Distant Horizons) to flesh out the concept.

In short, it's another masterwork, and one which goes particularly well with The Business Trip - making it handy that both live releases have been put out as part of the Emergency Broadcast Years boxed set at a decidedly generous price. Go for the Business Trip for a somewhat briefer journey, or embrace Love In Space if you want to go waaaay out there.