STEVE HILLAGE

I am not claiming to be anything more than familiar with Steve Hillage. Obviously, being a prog-head I've listened to this and that associated with the man. You can't but help stumbling over his work, either as a solo artist or in groups. Fish rising is the first solo album I'm getting acquainted with and I do like it. A lot, actually.

Being a prog-head I am partial to long tracks with fantastical names. Thus I love a track like Solar Music Suite, just by name and length but the proof is in the actual pudding. What an opener! Long instrumental passages, fantastical lyrics and greater than great instrumentation. There are some great jazzy passages I adore in this track, aswell as really heavy rock-sounds. the bass is great and the organ of Dave Stewart brings me to my knees. he's got such a personal and distinct sound it is flabbergasting.

Someone wrote the music flows and yes, to a degree I find that to be accurate but I find it more to be grooving really hard. It's bits and bobs of everything, really. Flowing, rocking out, grooving and bouncing. It's everything prog's supposed to be in one great song, namely Solar Music Suite.

The rest of the album has great moments aswell. The short Fish is goofing around but quite fun. The Salmon song and the closer Aftaglid is almost as impressive as Solar Music Suite. The salmon song is shorter and feels more punchy though Aftaglid is a marvellous piece of music ranging from the heavy to the sublime, the electric to the acoustic, from Europe to Asia. Simply outstanding.

I bought the 2007 remastered edition with two bonus tracks. The album I am reviewing is the original album compeised of five songs. The bonus tracks (Pentagrammaspin and Aftaglid Power trio version) are great but it is the original album that truly sets my head on fire. And let me tell you, to the sounds of these gloriuos pieces of music I am burning for eternity. Simply tremendous and amazing.

"Green" is my one of my two favourite Steve Hillage albums (my other favourite being "Fish Rising"). The album blends 70's Psychedelic Prog and Jazz/Rock Fusion with new wave Electronica, which gives it a unique sound.

"Green" is Hillage's 4th studio album. The record is oozing with hippy happy vibes, and funky fusion flavours. The addition of Pink Floyd's Nick Mason on drums and the production suits this album very much. Hillage's partner Miquette Giraudy adds some wonderful synth to this album too, which play a vital part in the unique sound of the album.

This album isn't so much heard as it is felt. The music seems to be sitting on top of the atmosphere, so to speak. Even as a recent fan of "Green", the album is one of my most sentimental albums. I could write all day about how and why I love this album, but I think it needs to be experienced to fully understand it's depth.

This is, in my opinion, a must have for fans of Psychedelic Prog.

5 stars! ☮

Steve Hillage is a Canterbury scene artist that I've never quite been able to enjoy as much as I hoped - not that that was his concern in the least. His work as a member of Gong, as well as the Gong-like solo debut "Fish Rising", set the bar pretty high for this guitarist. This album, his third solo flight and the first to really feel like a solo album (the prior two were more like supergroup albums), suffers from poor flow, underwritten song material, and thin sound. The difference is immediately apparent as soon as "Hello Dawn" starts. Whereas before Hillage's music was characterized by a huge, spacey sound, this one sounds like a rough bedroom demo by comparison. This would be fine (nothing wrong with a shift in perspective if you're an artist), if the song had anything going for it, which it sadly does not. Just a few chords, an optimistic vocal, and a weak hook. "Motivation" follows, showing glimpses of a dance beat to make a fairly annoying self-help song.

"Light in the Sky" is by far the best song here, with a great set of guitar riffs and a cool cameo vocal by Miquette Girady in the chorus. Great tune! "Radio" sounds good at first, with a long instrumental intro that hearkens back to the prior albums, but in the end it goes nowhere, even after the vocal finally kicks in. "Wait One Moment" returns to the basic 3 minute song format, with an emphasis on "basic": a predictable ballad that sounds ok, but doesn't offer much else for me. Again, basic is not a bad thing, but these songs could at least use some emotion or atmosphere to carry them along. "Saucer Surfing" is a decent enough space rocker, as is the first part of "Searching for the Spark" (the latter being a highlight on "Live Herald", overall a much better version than here). "Octave Doctors" is a ho-hum instrumental that doesn't leave any impression, but the worst is saved for last with "Not Fade Away", the Buddy Holly tune, seemingly "updated" to include the New Age philosophy Steve Hillage was into at the time, using Hillage buzzwords like "glid".

Hillage is a great musician with a very distinctive guitar style, but for this album he appears to go half-heartedly into the world of 3 minute songcraft, de-emphasizing his guitar and emphasizing his lyrics, which I have to say are pretty heavy-handed and don't inspire me much. "Light in the Sky" and "Searching for the Spark" save this one in the end, but overall I consider this a big disappointment.

An album I've returned to fairly recently as it was one that never pulled me in back in the 70s. I was never very impressed with the engineering and production; most of the sounds could have benefitted from some better soundboard treatment, better mixing. Plus, though Steve is a master of pulling some absolutely heart-wrenching chords, chord progressions, and melodies out of his beautifully creative soul, his music still feels unrefined and raw, at times even abrasive; rarely do things behave with flow and coherence. I've never seen or heard Steve live, but I wonder how well he'd be able to recreate his songs on stage. (FOr some reason this is important to me. Not only the ability but the desire. Otherwise, what else is a studio recording but an 'on' and 'off'' switch of the recording machine whilst jamming. Replicability denotes effort, structure, discipline, planning, practice, and commitment to posterity.)

1. "Solar Musick Suite" (16:55) contains many flashes of beauty: in sounds, in collaborative outcome, in structural flow. It is not, however, IMHO, a masterpiece of a prog epic. I find it to be not memorable (other than for the fact that it reminds me several times of one of it's masterful predecessors of which I am QUITE fond: KHAN's Space Shanty). (8/10)

2. "Fish" (1:22) is most remarkable for its GONG-like cosmological humor.

3. "Meditation of the Snake" (3:16) could be regarded as ground-breaking for its uses of delays, echoes, and loops, but, after that, is it anything memorable? The lead guitar that takes over for the final two minutes is so steeped--no, stuck--in blues scales that it almost sullies the other stuff. If you want a good experimentalist with guitar and sound effects, try TODD RUNDGREN. I know I do. (7/10)

4. "The Salmon Song" (8:32) quickly kicks into a nice little driving groove before layers of lead guitars begin to build. At 2:25 Steve begins his singing--nice but no really catching melodies. A little magic begins around the 3:45 mark: nice chords and effects, bassoon, scaled down support music. Almost TODD-like! Listening to this album reminds me once again that, for all the grief people give Todd Rundgren, he sure was years ahead of his peers in terms of production knowhow, talent and courage. Some nice space-lead guitar work beginning around 6:40. The bass and drums get a bit annoying. Interesting ending. (8/10)

5. "Aftaglid" (14:42) begins like a Hare Krishna chant: hand/finger bells and simple guitar riffs. By 1:40 we see a transformation into the delayed 'space' guitar for which Steve is quite known. The foundations drum and bass lines are so simplisitic as to make you wonder if the boys thought this was just a sound check or whether they expected the jam to stop at any moment. By 3:50 it finally feels as if the band is clicking--as if the bass and drummer have finally figured out that Steve isn't going to quit, that this is a real 'take' so they'd better get their act together. But then it all disappears at 4:35, fade out everybody but some acoustic guitar, cymbol play and floating-in-the-distant-background space guitar. Gong-like. In the seventh minutes things shift to a more Indian raga-like sound: hand drums, Indian melody being repeated on the guitar; psychedelia in the heavily treated DONOVAN-like vocals here. It's actually kind of a cool, mesmerizing section. At 8:45 we shift back into simple blues-rock formalities (these guys are no Clapton, Bruce & Baker or Hendrix, Redding & Mitchell). As much you can like the signature Hillage space guitar sound, it can't be enough to brainwash you into thinking that this is exceptionally composed or performed music, can it? Perhaps I need(ed) more drugs. (7/10)

This is a MEGA collection of instrumental tracks featuring some out of this world guitar work from Steve Hillage. It reminds me of the very early Ozric Tentacles with the moody synth sounds & broody bass lines & of course that supersonic guitar work. By all accounts 'For To Next' was not the album fans had hoped for although the track 'Alone' features some great fret work from Steve & isn't really a bad track. The rest aren't that good & in my opinion Steve was spending too much time trying to be a recognised 'vocalist' rather than being what he was-a superb guitar player! The tracks on 'And Not Or' prove this.No vocals to get in the way,just close your eyes & listen to these brilliant tracks. 'Before The Storm' could easily of been an Ozric track on 'Pungent Effulgent' & i'm sure this is one of the tracks that influenced Ed Wynne's guitar style. Very simple drum beats & bass lines lay the path for Steve's guitar to weave in & out of with those dark synths & echos always in the background. On the 4 minute mark the guitar gets savage with untold bends & soaring crisp notes. Even on the fade out Steve is still wringing the neck out of instrument & really the track should of gone on for another 2 or 3 minutes at least! 'Still Golden' is a real 'Up & at-um' track which i reckon would of been a brilliant live track,its one of those that you carnt help jiggin' too! Again real simple drum pattern with Steve walling in between the bass lines & synth sound effects,another stormer! From the middle of the track Steve changes direction with a more staccato guitar vibe before real-ling it all back in for the fade out,once again the jiggy beat & spacey soloing takes us to fade. Best of all is the title track 'And Not Or' this tune is superb-fantastic-brilliant!!! Like the rest of the tracks on this album the production is crystal clear-pin sharp. The track opens with a broody synth & bass line with Steve gently picking his notes in the background. As the track goes on once again the simple drum beat comes in with Steves lead guitar int winding with the infectious bass line. Its a stormer of a track,the guitar work is immense & in my opinion some of the best & most moving that ive ever heard,pure class! Again though sadly the track fades out on 6 minutes with Steve still shredding those notes,really it should of been a 10 minute track this! The three tracks ive mentioned are worth buying the album for alone but the others aren't bad either. The sad thing is Steve didn't really produce anything else like these tracks. OPEN wasnt a bad album but again some of the vocals spoit it for me. And Not Or?.....Yes please.

This is a really fun album from Steve, although somewhat uneven. "Searching for the Spark" is pretty mind-blowing psychedelic throb keyboard and guitar and just really great. My copy of this also has "Leylines to Glassdom" as a bonus track (better sounding IMO than the version on Green) which is also mind-blowing and leaves no doubt where Ozric Tentacles got their ideas from. What's amazing is that someone's recording stuff like that in 1977. The rest of the cd is more straight-forward rock flavored, although "Saucer Surfing" has some fun prog riffs and drumming and cool hippy lyrics, and "Motivation:" mixes prog with funk. "Hello Dawn" and "Wait One Moment" are just great songs, prog or not. And "Light in the Sky" is fun with its New Age-isms and Miquette Giraudy's hippy trippy background vocals. If you're a prog snob "Fish Rising" is probably a better pick, but if you already know and love the Hillage sound no matter what style this one is worth checking out.

A beautiful, pastoral, electronic ambient recording. Now 33 years old, it hasn't dated much at all. Vocal free and quite unlike anything else in Steve Hillage's catalogue, 'Rainbow Dome Music' is a beatless journey through sunny countryside where you might want to stop, have a cup of tea, eat some sandwiches and swat a few flies off your pork pies before dozing off in the late afternoon sunshine. That's what goes through my mind anyway...

Unobtrusive synths and proto sequencers are used liberally on the opener which lasts a whopping 23 minutes. Very similar to modern day equivalents Steve Roach and Robert Rich, you can see where said artists got some of their inspiration from.

'Rainbow Dome Music' is a slowly evolving, laid back, peaceful affair and is one of the best renditions of 'ambient' that I've heard. Some really nice high pitched electric guitars weave their way gradually into the album but are sensibly kept in the background and used frugally.

One good thing about this album is that it's not cheesy at all. It sounds almost timeless. The second and last track 'Four ever rainbow' continues where the last one finished. Walls of keyboards dominate as a few bloops and bleeps emerge here and there. Guitars that are so effected that they no longer sound like guitars appear like washes of keyboards.

A dreamy thing of beauty.

'Green' is a mostly of it's time 1978 album, which leaves one wondering if it's really Roger Waters on vocals throughout. Honestly, if there's one voice I thought was beyond replication - I would have put my mortgage on Roger. Steve Hillage appears to have pulled this off easily and could be considered as a Waters doppelganger.

'Green' isn't so bad - it has some great keyboard chords that are very similar to the infinitely superior instrumental 'Rainbow Dome Musick'. There's just too many 'straight' drums throughout which verge on disco and funk. Some of the guitars are pretty good with their highly treated high pitched sound, but at the end of the day 'Green' is a rather average album with nothing to write home about and will not be anyone's favourite album of all time.

It's ok... just...

Steve Hillage's debut album.

.......sort off......

Steve Hillage had already been involved in some notable albums before releasing this album. Uriel, Egg, Khan and most notable Gong. You will find his guitar on some of the best albums this scene has seen. And that was before he recorded this, his debut album. In short, he was a veteran.

Gong is a keyword here. He took with him some of the best people from Gong and most of it's sound too. Fish Rising is a Gong album with Steve Hillage as the boss. A solo album yes, but fans of Gong cannot overlook/ignore this album.

Steve Hillage had/has his own visions which differs from Daevid Allen's visions and that is very evident on this album. The guitars are in the forefront here and so is guitar riffs and hooks. Still plenty of Gong'isms left though. The songs here also has a far more symphonic prog buildup than Gong ever had. This is perhaps something Steve brought over from Egg.

And then we have some truly great tracks too. The Salmon Song is superb and has one of the best guitar riffs the prog scene has ever witnessed. The opener and seventeen minutes long Solar Musick Suite is also superb. The rest is also very good stuff. But those two pieces is in it's own class. This makes this a great album and one of the better ones from the Canterbury scene.

4.5 stars

A shift over into progressive electronic New Age realms, and the missing link between Steve's solo career and the later System 7 work. Like System 7, the album is a full collaboration between Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, who composes the entirety of side 1, and like System 7 it was originally conceived as chillout music, in this case for a mind-body-spirit festival in London. (In fact, System 7 came about when Steve realised that UK nightclub DJs were incorporating elements of this album into their chillout sets.) If you want placid and tranquil relaxation music, it's a pretty good example of the form, though it does require a bit of patience - both tracks take a while to get going, but they're great when they do.