SPIRAL REALMS

Spiral Realms was a project created around 1993 by keyboardist/violinist Simon House, mostly known as a member of classic mid-70's Hawkwind.Earlier he had played with High Tide and Third Ear Band.After he left Hawkwind in 1978, House collaborated with David Bowie, Mike Oldfield and Michael Moorcock among others, while during the late-80's and early-90's he rejoined both Hawkwind and High Tide for a short period.In 1993, while working on Nik Turner's ''Prophets of Time'' album, he met keyboardist Len Del Rio and teamed up with him under the Spiral Realms moniker.They recorded their debut ''Trip to G9'' in London between March and July 94' and the album was released the next year on Cleopatra's sublabel Hypnotic.

The self-titled track and the following short ''Elements II'' shows the love of House for Electro-Ambient textures, quite close to TANGERINE DREAM's ethereal music parts, with long spacey synths and modern Electronics, being both typical products of their time.Things become extremely interesting with the long ''Red giant'', a mix of impressive Electronic Music with somewhat Neo Prog-ish melodic guitar lines, pounding drum programming and a cosmic atmosphere at the end of a pretty atmospheric track.''Tritium'' is another good composition, performed in the vein of SHAMALL's albums, blending Electronic and New Wave with bombastic guitar and violin breaks and offering rich and furious synth-led grooves.''1000 years under solar sails'' shows a return to the opening forms of the work, a long pure Electronic track with lots of sound effects, cosmic synthesizers and a very spacey mood with soaring keyboards, creating imaginative soundscapes.''Solar flares'' is a another beautiful trip into the world of TANGERINE DREAM alikes.Hypnotic electronic loops with melodic and dreamy synth lines and distorted vocals offer relaxed still very deep synth-based music, that would perfectly work as a Science-Fiction soundtrack.

An ethereal and deeply atmospheric work, characterizing Simon House's talent.Armoured basically with various keyboards and a talented collaborator, the ex-Hawkwind mastermind managed to produce well-arranged and cosmic soundscapes, that still retain an inner power.Recommended.

This is the second album i got by spiral realms and is a preety good layed back album with the synths by len del rio and simon house on electric violin and other stuff,the first track cysyrgy is a not to bad track a perfect track to put on with the lights of same goes for every track on this,this album is one of those albums that might be hard to get into but it is a not to bad album plus i got the version which was released in 2004 on hawk records[hawkvp33cd] voiceprint i think,i always enjoy this better at night as its got that feel to it,simon houses violin on this album is ok to which for me is what makes the album and is all over it,i think this would appeal to more on the side of tangerine dream fans more than hawkwind as its more tangerine dream sounding and i think some hawkwind fans would or might be disappointed but i might be wrong,i,m a big hawkwind fan and found myself listening to this all the way through and it actually isnt a bad album attall and the version i got has 2 cds with it wheres the 2nd cd is remixes of the album so to get u into it more theres 2 cds which is an ok idea i think,i give this 3 stars as its an album which is different to hear and simon houses violin sounds ok on this to,this album is worth a listen give it ago,its nice and mellow all the way through kind of relaxing.3 stars.

simon house with spiral realms solar wind is a great album it has a good version of lunar sea which i think is the best track on whole cd,its worth buying if you like hawkwind and simons other albums,ive also got simon houses albums yassasim[which is great to],spiral galaxy revisited[a great one too],house of dreams [this one i dont like the singer on it but its an ok album],anyway solar wind is a great place to start if you want to hear some of simon houses solo stuff or if you want spiral realms,simon house deserves more credit as hes a good violinist,also listen to hawkwind albums called with him on hall of the mountain grill,warrior at the edge of time,quark strangeness and charm,and plus a few other hawkwind albums.i give it 3 stars

Spiral Realms is the brainchild of legendary violinist Simon House of Third Ear Band, Hawkwind's finest era (In the Hall of the Mountain Grill, Warrior on the Edge of Time, Astounding Sounds, 25 Years On, Quark, Strangeness & Charm and PXR 5) and David Bowie fame. In 1995, he decided to take a brilliant track off Warrior called Spiral Galaxy 28948 (according to legend, his birth date!) and produce two albums of similarly spectacular, spacey, psychedelic and totally original electronic music of the highest caliber. The first one ,"Trip to G9" is a collaboration with American Len Del Rio (keyboardist with Nic Turner's Sphynx as well as Hawkwind side project Anubian Lights) and it is a most rewarding electronic symphony that owes a little to the Tangerine Dream/ Klaus Schulze style but is way more violin driven which gives it a completely different aura. It's as if the USS Enterprise was now commanded by Captain House and that his phasers were string-driven things of sublime power that scoured deep into the farthest corners of space , streaming past "The Red Giant", warp-speeding towards "Tritium" and spending the next "1,000 Years Under Solar Sails". Spiraling, swirling, zooming, gushing waves of sequence-drenched euphoria is well worth the adventure. Unfortunately, this wonderful material has remained unknown and can be found for a song and dance on Amazon-type sites. The follow up "Crystal Jungles of Eos" is as good if not even an asteroid better. Fans of Hawkwind obviously need these but should appeal to instrumental electronic progfans, regardless which planet they may come from. Well worth the trek. 4 sonic meteors