LEVITATION

I have known Hawkwind for such a long time since I was a child. I remember vividly that one of their albums had a space craft picture as its cover. But I do not know for some reason I was not able to enjoy their music. I think their music was not compelling enough to create the need to listen to the album. I found the CD of "Levitation" album last year at secondary market. Because the price was quite cheap so I purchased the remastered edition of this album with digipak format. At first spin, the first reaction was quite similar with when I heard the first time in 1970: nothing seemed compelling from this classic space rock legend. But the more I tried to spin it, I could then enjoy the music.

The album opens with a title track "Levitation" where the music is somewhat space psychedelic like Eloy but less ambient. The keyboard solo in the middle of the track is really nice. "Motor way city" enters with less upbeat style but still maintaining the space psychedelic style. "Psychosis" starts with a sound like a space craft that is approaching to Planet Earth especially when it is combined with a narrative that sounds like people commanding the space craft. The sounds of keyboard dominate this song in unstructured way which moves seamlessly to the next track "World of tiers". This is an upbeat song with good melody and balanced combination of ambient, guitar work, drums and keyboard - all of them moves in floating way. This is good another instrumental.

"Prelude" only provides a bridge that brings us to the nice song "Who's gona win the war" with beautiful melody. The music is basically simple with floating style as the main body of the music while bass guitar provides its walking basslines combined with guitar, drums and spacey keyboard. As far as composition concerns, this is a good track with good guitar solo and bass guitar as main rhythm section that characterizes the song.

"Space chase" is another good track in faster tempo and good drums work, guitar and keyboard. The keyboard sound effects that remind to space craft journey have enriched the music, in terms of textures. The keyboard solo is really stunning and this is the best song from this album. The guitar solo that follows the keyboard is also nice. "The 5th second of forever" (from the film) starts beautifully with acoustic guitar fills. This is something different compared to other tracks in this album. The keyboard then follows with its spacey sounds followed with the full blown music in medium tempo. Again, guitar provides good melody during the singing part. The guitar solo that follows is stunning but unfortunately short and it's fading out when the acoustic guitar returns back. "Dust of Time" concludes the album with a medium tempo music using space psychedelic as main style and, as usual, keyboard provides spacey and ambient styles.

Overall, it's a good space psychedelic rock music.

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW