STEVE HILLAGE

— First review of this album —

Steve Hillage is a well-known guitar player from the 70's. Despite the fact that nowadays he's doing Electronic Music under the System 7 name, throughout the 70's he was considered a guitar innovator and was associated with the Canterbury Scene. Steve Hillage was the member of bands like Gong (which he recorded 3 albums with) and Khan. He also started his solo career in 1975 before his departure.

Live in England 1979 (2013) is a package recently released by Gonzo Multimedia that will be for sure a delight for fans. It contains 1 CD and 1 DVD of Steve Hillage's performance at The University Of Kent on 28th February 1979. Like I said, Live In England 1979 (2013) is mainly a piece for fans and collectors.

On the CD we have 6 tracks recorded in the aforementioned University, and two more recorded in 1977 (probably in Germany) on the tour of his album L (1976). Tough the performance of the 1979 show is absolutely great, it feels that the album is a bit of a patchwork with many bits here and there gathered together to have something extra on the package. But if you forget that and focus on Steve's band, you'll see his best band's line up with Steve Hillage (vocals and guitars), Miquette Giraudy (vocals and synths), Dave Stewart (guitars), John McKenzie (bass) and Andy Anderson (drums). This is the same line up that recorded his Live Herald (1978) album and also tracks recorded to his album Open (1979).

The highlights on Live In England 1979 (2013) CD are 'Salmon Song', 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' and an interesting version of The Beatles 'It's All Too Much'. To complete the album you still have 'Unzipping The Zype', the punk '1988 Activator', 'Unidentified (Flying Being)' and the 77 concert bonus material with 'Hurdy Gurdy Glissando' and 'Electrick Gypsies'.

But it's on the DVD that we have the most shinning treasures of Live In England 1979 (2013). The DVD disc has the full 1979 concert plus two short promo videos for the songs 'Radio' and 'Light In The Sky' that were released on his album Motivation Radio (1977) and a 2006 in-depth interview with Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy.

Basically, if you're a Steve Hillage fan this package that Gonzo Multimedia has put together is just essential for you. If you're not a fan, it would be interesting for starting with his music and to see a great band live.

(Originally posted on progshine.net)

Between Khan and Gong, there was Fish Rising, another awesome work. A concept album about... fishing? According to Steve Hillage, most of the music on Fish Rising, like The Salmon Song, Solar Musick Suite and even the bonus track Pentagrammaspin would have appeared on a second Khan album. The titles and lyrics were different. The review below was taken by an "album reviews-album of the month" page from a 70s newspaper. It cames within my Fish Rising booklet, I found it interesting so I will share with you guys.

That Steve Hillage is now firmly established as one of the finest guitar players in the country must now be beyond doubt. As the new driving force behind Gong ménage, he has given them driving direction that they needed to allow them to break through from the "too freaky for me" accusation which once used surround them. Now, Hillage has produced his own solo album and what a masterpiece it is. On any of its many levels it hits you as a triumph for a new type of music which doesn't draw it's influences from any of the big fads at present in vogue. It's not boring laid-back pseudo country music, it isn't white soul and it isn't repetitive. What it is is completely original guitar work which draws its inspiration from straight out of Hillage's head, not off a B. B. King album of a Nashvile session man's lunchtime break. Backed by a collection of many of the people Hillage has spent the last few years with, this solo album presents a bewildering amount of talent. Listen to the bass lines of Mike Howllet, the drum work of Pierre Moerlin and, especially the synthesizer work of Tim 'Moonweed' Blake. The musical style of the album is difficult to describe, fluctuating from a sort of nursery rhyme innocence followed by towering waves of echo guitar and synthesizer to a straightforward rock riff covered over by beautiful sustain guitar. By the way, don't worry if Steve's mystical motivation puts you off (it doesn't us we should add). He has not fallen into the Harry Georgeson trap of ear bending you with fairly boring pseudo Eastern religions. Hillage just calmly puts in his own feelings (which are broad enough and natural enough for anyone to get off on) and lets us take it from there.

Sitting "Rainbow Dome" in the Canterbury scene because Steve Hillage comes from there; is quiet undeserving; not because there is something wrong with that scene; but mainly because this effort goes beyond that sole stage, This work will also be sitted more comfortably among the electronic-prog people or their kraut counterparts or better yet; among the 3. "Canterbury"; because it has all the "back to nature; psychedelic approach"; "Electronic" because as raw as "recorded in a hut" it seems; it uses wisely electronic gadgets and synths available at the time plus Steves´s long time electric accomplice; and also because the work itself has the feeling of long environmental conceptual ambiences; this genre was so famous for. And last but not least; the whole thing; as sacred as it seems to be; has the loosen up attitude the "Krauts" so dearly enjoy. In todays fashion this could easily be called very early "New Age Music". A category that then turned to be called "Ambient". So also; it could be named early "Ambient Music"... Un-pretentious and quiet away ahead of its time; a 2 "vinyl sided" single compositions (44 min in total); that should not be overlooked by people who dig the sub-genres mentioned above and proggers who like to know what happened before midi.-- 4 very deserving stars; mainly for being ahead of its time.

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.