FISH RISING

This is Steve's first studio album. Many styles are involved: there are many spacy moods clearly reminding Gong. Miquette Giraudy's unique keyboards are often spacy, and the electric guitars constantly consist in visceral & weird solos: you easily discover that Ozric Tentacles were influenced by such music. Actually the unique spacy atmospheres often consist in a combination of repeated electric guitar and keyboards brief notes treated with a strong echo and a band pass change of electronic filters, which can be noticed on Steve's "Green" album: For 1975, those atmospheres were a breakthrough! There are some exaggerated sexy female voices, like the ones on the Daevid Allen's "Planet Gong- Live Floating Anarchy 1977" album. Because of the presence of Dave Stewart on electric piano & organ, there are some Canterbury influences too: Steve Hillage provides the lead vocals, so that some parts sound like the Khan's "Space shanty" album, on which Hillage and Stewart play guitars and synthesizers: the difference is that "Space Shanty" is more structured and less spacy. The "Fish Rising" album is a little bit unstructured and the sound is not crystal clean, reminding some Jimi Hendrix's albums, at least the electric guitar solos.

Rating: 4.5 stars