STEVE HILLAGE

Initially slated to be one half of the double release "The Red Album / The Green Album" which was nixed in favor of reworking the material into two separate albums, "The Red Album" ended up being released as "Motivation Radio" in 1977 whereas GREEN which was recorded simultaneously followed the year later. STEVE HILLAGE became fairly famous in the UK after the success of his second album "L" which actually peaked at number 10 on the albums charts. The ambitious drive to release a double album was due to a surge of creativity that took place with his songwriting partner Miquette Giraudy who also had been contributing his synthesizer duties since "Fish Rising."

HILLAGE's fourth album GREEN pretty much followed in the footsteps of "Motivation Radio" however this time around was graced with the production and engineering skills of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason who had found time between the massive "Animals" tour and the recording sessions that would lead up to "The Wall." Experimenting with guitar synthesizers for the first time, GREEN offered a unique mix of the funk-based more mainstream rock sounds as heard on "Motivation Radio" only this time around the excessive space rock and glissando glory first experienced on "Fish Rising" were resurrected in full force to craft a unique mix of the various stylistic approaches that HILLAGE had been streamlining since he went solo.

GREEN delivered that perfect mix of riff-based guitar rock that HILLAGE had initiated on the "L" album along with the ethereal atmospheres generated through an arsenal of guitar synths and keyboard techniques. The "Fish Rising" psychedelic grooves made a full reprise culminating on the closing "The Glorious Om Riff" which would've sat comfortably on HILLAGE's vintage space rock debut. The album begins with the pacifying "Sea Nature" which focuses on HILLAGE's propensity of crafting abstract esoteric subject matter of spirituality, science fiction and fantasy realms along with a sense of giddy optimism reminiscent of the hippie era. The tracks alternate between accessible funk-fueled space rock with pure ethereal excursions into instrumental otherworldly segues.

"Ethereal Ships" for example employs HILLAGE's love for glissando guitar extravaganzas with jittery clusters of sound that slowly ooze on into the cosmos before the track breaks into a guitar funk finale. The use of clean guitar effects and more standard space rock procedures allowed the Floydian influences of Nick Mason to shine through on various tracks such as "Musick Of The Trees" and "Palm Trees (Love Guitar)." The wild card of the album is the pure funk based "Unidentified (Flying Being)" which commingles with HILLAGE's most tripped out guitar techniques which makes for an oddball playground of styles that somehow works fairly well.

While too much of the "Motivation Radio" funk based grooves may have derailed the album's momentum, HILLAGE follows with the synthesizer-laden twofold cosmic excursion set of "U.F.O. Over Paris" and the celestial sublimity of "Leylines To Glassdom." The album really just gets better and better til the end with the metaphysical musings of "Crystal City" before launching off into the furtherest reaches of the cosmos with the closing combo pack psychedelic jaunt of "Activation Meditation" and the "Fish Rising" inspired "The Glorious Om Riff" which perfectly summarizes the album's overall effectiveness.

GREEN is one of HILLAGE's best moments with a well-crafted roster of diverse tracks that span his arsenal of tricks and trinkets that he had been crafting since his days with Arzachel, Khan and Gong as well as the affluence of sound effects and experiments that were crafted for the making of this album. A dynamic range of musical styles amalgamated into an alchemy of excellence were the glorious results. The production and mixing of Nick Mason also elevates GREEN to the next level of magnificence and the perfect mix of mystical themed lyrics in cahoots with psychedelic excursions that find just enough grounding funk rock to keep the project from escaping the complete gravitational pull of our planet ensures that this album flows amazingly well from beginning to end. GREEN is my favorite HILLAGE release after the superior masterwork debut "Fish Rising" which he would never top.

By 1977 former Gong guitarist STEVE HILLAGE was well on his own path with a successful solo career building momentum but as the age of prog was ceding to a new era of funk, punk and disco, HILLAGE became irritated with many prog snobs snubbing the new up and coming genres and limiting his musical expressions to the world of progressive rock. In his own expressions of rebellion and breaking free from any such pigeonholing attempts, HILLAGE delivered a new sound on his third album MOTIVATION RADIO which found as much inspiration from Funkadelic and Earth, Wind & Fire as from Gong or Pink Floyd.

Unable to shake his space rock connections completely, MOTIVATION RADIO offered a unique mix of danceable funk rock steeped with the usual glissando guitar fueled psychedelia and art rock. The album also added a bit of punkish guitar heft that surely must've thrown the prog snobs for a loop when this hit the scene. While the funk rock moves dominate the guitar, bass and drum rhythm sections, HILLAGE hired Malcom Cecil from Tonto's Expanding Head Band to produce and engineer the album which in the process kept many of the trippiest moments of classic Gong alive and well. Likewise HILLAGE's vocal delivery is very reminiscent of Daevid Allen's best Gong moments so apparently he was indelibly marked by the experience for life.

This album offered an interesting mix of tracks with some like the opening "Hello Dawn" shouting the fact that HILLAGE had totally funked up his fans sh.i.t and delivered a major curveball but it doesn't take long for his psychedelic roots to steal the show such as the Gong-esque "Light In The Sky" that narrates the arrival of UFOs complete with all those freaky psychedelic excursions heard on "Angel's Egg" and "You" even with a surrogate Gilli Smyth offering some space whispering. Some tracks like "Wait One Moment" take on a Pink Floyd flavor with a chilled space rock sound that reminds me of "Comfortably Numb" from "The Wall" but obviously two years before that album would emerge.

Of all the tracks on board, "Saucer Surfing" is the closest thing to HILLAGE's masterwork "Fish RIsing" with the same trippy layers of glissando guitar accompanying the overly mystical and esoteric lyrics that sometimes border on ridiculous but reflected the new age and Eastern philosophical interests that dominated the 60s and 70s. "Searching For The Spark" prognosticates the style of what Ozric Tentacles would make a career out of and its not unthinkable that the band was inspired by the unique electronica that dances around in a hypnotic yet cyclical manner. "Octave Dancers" must've really rankled prog stalwarts because it almost sounds like dancy disco only with a funk groove yet features STEVE's classic glissando workouts as well as bluesy guitar licks. The closing "Not Fade Away (Gild Forever)" ends the album with rather bluesy funky space rock vibe.

This is an album that i never really liked a lot until i let it sink under my skin. Sure it's not HILLAGE's best of the lot by a long shot but it certainly does deliver some entertaining moments. Like many the funk and simplicity that didn't measure up to "Fish Rising" rubbed me the wrong way but as i've listening to it more and more it certainly has grown on me in a weird way. There are lots of clever moments on this and the production is amazingly crisp and clear (granted i have the 2000 remaster). Sure HILLAGE's vocal performances range from classic Daevid Allen to sometimes sounding like Devo and even a touch of new wave but ultimately the space mix and HILLAGE's own signature style tips it all in my favor of liking it more. Not his magnus opus but personally i like this one better than "L."

A 3.5 star album but i like it enough to round up to 4

Review #138!

Ethereal, spiritual, magical. Incredibly fluid (the non- Newtonian kind!) and solid at the same time, flowing Incredibly well through every second of each suite, yet rocking and jazzing incredibly hard at its core. Funky, psychedelic, stoned, jazzy, absolute insane masterpiece. Steve Hillage and his guitar are inseperable, them playing together in harmony at every key and every note. I liked this more than any thing (and they have some billion albums out, that means a lot) the Gong ever done! And in my opinion, that is for all the right reasons. Here Steve Hillage seems more free than he ever was before. This honestly seems like a lost Gong relic or some mysterious outtake collection from Santana's spiritual jazz period that just didn't make the cut. 'Solar Musick Suite' is a masterful guitar-led jazz-rock, 'Fish' is a goofy one-minute ditty, 'Meditation...' is an ethereal guitar solo with synth undertones, 'The Salmon Song' is a slow- building, pure rock (borderline post-metal!) jamming mini- suite, and 'Aftaglid' is a hard-rocking eclectic groove-session of a song. What I'm trying to get at 8s that this album is mad. Mad amazing! Prog on.

The cover design of this single circulates the same graphics as Steve Hillage's fourth album Green (1978), but in fact only the B side song was taken from it. Hillage's version of the Beatles song 'Getting Better' -- which appeared on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) -- wasn't originally included on his next rock album Open (1979) either. It is, however, one of the five bonus tracks on the 1990 CD remaster of Open.

I have come across some various artists compilations covering Beatles songs but I hadn't heard this one before. Truth to be told, if you remember the original song and are familiar with Hillage's style, you already have a very good idea of how it sounds. The glissando guitar and the spacey synths, they're all here. There's also a dance-inviting boogie groove in the rhythm section. Personally I prefer the Beatles original, at least for the vocals, because Hillage isn't a great singer in my opinion.

'Palm Trees (Love Guitar)' is a good representative from Green. Actually it's among the album's many highlights, helped by the relatively small amount of vocals. The guitar work is brilliant and the hazy, laid back summer feel is very enjoyable.

Both the album Green and the single 'Getting Better' were co-produced by Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason. Excellent collaboration indeed.

"Fish Rising", the 1975 LP from Hillage, is quite simply a lovely record. Full of beautiful guitar textures, spacey vibes, and thoughtful and spiritual lyrics.

Truly a must-have record for the guitarists out there into Prog and Psych, as well as European and Canterbury Prog scene fans. There are wondrous sounds at every turn. Layered guitars awash with modulation effects create beautiful clean melodies and arpeggios, then the next moment a meaty distorted guitar breaks and wails lyrical leads. This aspect of the LP is the highlight for me, but there is so much more as well.

Synth sequences and oscillator sounds float through the background of the "Solar Musick Suite", the first track and a highlight for sure. While there is fabulous layering and depth to the instrumentation, it leaves space between the parts and never feels busy.

There a rich tapestry of guest appearances on here--Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow, Comus, National Health), and Dave Stewart (Egg, National Health, Khan, Hatfield and the North) as well as several Gong members. The musicianship is outstanding and the sounds they create engrossing. While it can seem at times that the record is primarily an instrumental tour-de-force, there are plentiful and interesting lyrics throughout, often sung in unassuming fashion and mixed a bit low so that they blend into the instruments. The words paint a vision of togetherness and growth--humanity's connection to a spirit of the world, of our consciousness. That said, they also have a sense of levity and a dash of absurdity that keeps them from being heavy-handed and overly lofty.

"The Salmon Song" at times feels as if it is one long guitar solo, but its middle section--a Zappa-esque instrumental interlude--is outstanding. "Aftaglid" is intense. That seems like the easiest way to describe it. Seemingly innocuous bouncing guitar notes that repeat lead into a heavy and rocking section of overdriven, fuzzed-out guitars wet with tape delay, great textural synth work, and visceral drumming the all come together to make you want to bang your head. Following that, a beautiful and pastoral melodic section with acoustic guitar and ambient textures provide a welcome contrast as it rides you off into a swirling multi-colored sunset.

There's plenty to love about this--what many consider his best solo work?and thus it should come highly recommended to add to your collection. How Hillage is not incredibly famous the world over as a preeminent guitarist on the level of Page, Clapton, Beck, and Hendrix is beyond me. An outstanding work of excellence, with great sleeve art to boot.

"We've explored the infinite circuitry. To try and find a scheme that gave us form It burns our curiosity. And the answers that we sit and hope to find Are living here inside of we." -- "Sun Song", from Solar Music Suite

After Daevid Allen left Gong following the band's epic classic "You" which concluded the hippie prog adventures on "The Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy," STEVE HILLAGE decided to stick around and continue his spaced out glissando guitar antics on Pierre Moerlen's newest rendition of the Gong universe. Despite a noble effort things got a little to hard to handle with all the changes and having just found a major score with his own debut "Fish Rising," HILLAGE decided to forge ahead as a solo artist rather than endure the drama of the band situation he found himself in at the time.

In most ways, "Fish Rising" was a continuation of the sound that Hillage helped pioneer on Gong's albums "Angel's Egg" and "You" and since it was recorded while he was still a participating member, many of the musicians from Gong joined in to transmogrify a wealth of material left over from HILLAGE's Khan days into full-on progressive space rock astral rockers. While the album didn't quite have a universal commercial appeal, it was and remains a veritable classic of the world of 1970s progressive rock but when it came to following up with second solo offering, HILLAGE had to start from scratch without his Gong connections to steer him through.

The result was the album L which found HILLAGE trading in members from Gong for members of Todd Rundgren's Utopia. The album was in fact recorded in New York produced by Rundgren himself who had made quite a name for himself as a producer. Given the slicker crossover prog of Rundgren and his band Utopia, it's no surprise that L itself followed suit with several more direct tracks that sprawled less and enticed with heavier guitar workouts yet still embraced the new age hippie ethos that HILLAGE had willfully inherited from the Gong-o-sphere. While the album did indeed hit the #10 position on the album charts in his native UK and having become his most successful album commercially, for HILLAGE's prog fans this album was somewhat of a disappointment.

First of all, of the six tracks on board, three are covers leaving only half of the album to feature HILLAGE's own distinct compositional fortitude. The rather strange opener "Hurdy Gurdy Man" showcased a palatable cover of Donovan's classic hit but also cast a dubious spell as to whether Mr HILLAGE could continue to forge a career in the footsteps of his amazingly creative and mind-expanding debut. The following "Hurdy Gurdy Glissando" is a return to form sounding as if it indeed could've been slipped into the debut's effortless flow but also sounds a bit out of sync with the psychedelic pop sensibilities of the Donovan cover.

The beautiful "Electrick Gypsies" is perhaps one of the best tracks with HILLAGE's poetic prose accompanied by glistening guitar antics and guest musician Don Cherry's ominous trumpet sounds. The track features excellent space rock guitar effects and a more blues rock approach to HILLAGE's solos. Continuing down the hippie eccentrics of the 60s, "Om Nama Shivaya" which is a traditional Hindu mantra brings some raga rock to the table which featured a vocal accompaniment by Miquette Giraudy who presumably serves as HILLAGE's counterpart in the classic Gilli Smyth role as space whisperer. While not bad, the track suffers from a bit of cheesiness as HILLAGE's once magnanimous composiitons had been tamped down to more digestible units.

Side Two on the original LP captures the closest vibe to "Fish Rising" with the excellent "Lunar Musick Suite" only turned up a few notches with faster tempos and a heavier rock heft. Still though, the dueling guitar licks are right out of the "Fish Rising" playbook making this 12 minute track another highlight of L. This one is the most progressive as well with loads of time signature deviations, space rock atmospherics and even an excellent trumpet solo from Don Cherry who brings his jazz sensibilities to the table in perfect form and gives this album a much needed upgrade in the stylistic approach of the debut. This track really should've been the template for the entire album to revolve around. Finishing the album is the George Harrison cover "It's All Too Much" which prognosticates the more poppy direction HILLAGE would visit in the future with simple electronic drumbeats and catchy verse / chorus arrangements. Not bad but doesn't fit on this album overall.

In the end, L fell a few steps down from the perfection of "Fish Rising." Whereas the debut made seamless transitions with an epic flow to its trajectory, L on the other hand sounds stilted with clunky covers oafishly sitting next to three excellent originals therefore i have never been able to get into this second album as a whole. True that even the covers are well performed and adequately adapted to HILLAGE's unique idiosyncrasies however the problem lies in the fact that the album doesn't flow smoothly like its predecessor. If the album started out with the superb "Lunar Musick Suite" and then built off of that established sound, L could've been a worthy successor to the debut but unfortunately HILLAGE seemed to want to distance himself from his Gong days and forge a new commercial path as the tides in the music industry were beginning to shift around the year 1976. While it may have made sense at the time, by today's classic prog standards L just doesn't have the mojo magic that "Fish Rising" had in abundance. No true HILLAGE fan will find this album missing from the collection because there is plenty on here to love but unfortunately it signaled the decline in HILLAGE's do-no-wrong days.

3.5 rounded down

If the angels in heaven above were to relinquish their harps in favour of electric guitars and ARP synthesizers, they would surely sound like Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy on this album. Rainbow Dome Musick is the ultimate culmination of the tripped-out celestial soundscapes with which Hillage had made a name for himself throughout the decade, taken here to their extreme: no drums, no vocals, just a blissful atmosphere, stretched across two side-long compositions. Track 1, "Garden Of Paradise", may not sound too special by today's standards, but it is beautifully done: starting from a collection of nature sounds and sweet electric piano tones, it develops very slowly into something that sounds like a Berlin School track without a pulse, with loads of sequenced synth arpeggios washing over the listener until Hillage's guitar roars wonderfully on top of it all. However, it is the second track "Four Ever Rainbow" that makes this album truly timeless: the guitar sounds like something from another planet, being processed through so many filters and pedals that it becomes an indistinct mass of consonance. The chord changes that ensue from this mass are magical, and the piece finally settles on the record's sole moment of rhythmic pulsation with a final synth melody in E major, which eventually devolves into arrhytmic synth and guitar glissandos as the piece fades out. This is a true masterpiece of space rock and ambient music.

Kind of dull. Most of it is boring and the synth sounds are god awful. The singing is solid, the lack of an omnipresent organ makes me sad. No horns, pretty much just guitar drums bass and spacey synths... So yeah I dislike the instrumentation. The music is also not jazzy enough, too psychedelic.

The album starts out at 4* with Solar Musik Suite then gets PRoGressively (hahaha) worse. Reminds me of Tarkus if the sidelong was a little bit worse. The three songs after the aforementioned are straight up ambient filler, no point listening to. Last song is profoundly boring psychedelic guitar jam -> ambient nothing (again) -> eastern drone -> spacey guitar (spacey =/=? psychedelic) -> (got bored and shut it off)

If you like space/psychedelic rock definitely give this a go. My review may seem a bit scathing but the music is fine, just not my cuppa.

Renowned guitarist STEVE HILLAGE has been part of the Canterbury Scene since the late 1960's. He was involved with two early one-album band projects: the psychedelic Arzachel (Uriel) album in 1969 and Khan's outstanding "Space Shanty" album in 1971. He's also been a longstanding member of the Jazz-Rock band, Gong. More recently, Steve Hillage was one half of the electronic dance duo, System 7. He also teamed up with ambient musician Evan Marc in 2008 to record the album "Dreamtime Submersible". The album reviewed here, "Fish Rising" (1975), is his first album in a long solo career spanning four decades and seven studio albums. He followed the "Fish Rising" album with six more releases in the late-1970's & early 80's:- "L" (1976); "Motivation Radio" (1977); "Green" (1978); "Rainbow Dome Musick" (1979); "Open" (1979); & finally, "For to Next" (1983). Many of Steve Hillage's bandmates from Gong featured on his first solo outing, including most notably, Pierre Moerlen on drums and percussion and Mike Howlett on bass. The line-up also included Dave Stewart on keyboards, who later paired up with Barbara Gaskin for "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To) in 1986. The 2007 remastered CD edition of "Fish Rising" added two bonus tracks to the original five pieces of music on the album.

"Fish Rising" consists of three long suites of music and two shorter songs. The album opens radiantly with the four-part "Solar Musick Suite", the longest piece on the album at nearly 17 minutes long. The first part "Sun Song (I Love It's Holy Mystery)" bursts into view like a brilliant ray of sunshine. This warm and melodic prog is positively glowing in rainbow colours with some simply sensational soaring guitar riffing from Steve Hillage. He's in fine voice too with his rich silver-toned vocals adding to the sense of warmth. It's a joyous and uplifting song with a flower-power message of love and peace and eternal optimism as these lyric reveal:- "So people look into each others eyes and gaze at them with certainty, We're gathered here today from all around to celebrate eternity, The spirit in the air is never far immersed in our totality, And the answers that we sit and hope to find, Are living here in side of we." ..... This joyful and invigorating music feels like the burgeoning arrival of spring, where colourful flowers are blooming in a twisting and transitional dance of new growth, as mother nature shakes off winter's cold embrace. This is warm and radiant music to stimulate and rejuvenate the soul. The "Solar Musick Suite" merges effortlessly into "Canterbury Sunrise", a lively Jazz-Rock instrumental, giving Steve Hillage a chance to really shine with some impressive soloing and with Dave Stewart providing sterling accompaniment on the organ. Next up is "Hiram Aftaglid Meets the Dervish", a wild and uninhibited whirling dervish of stirring Canterbury Scene music that's very reminiscent of some of Caravan's wilder Jazz-Rock freak-outs. Finally, there's a brief reprise of the glorious opening "Sun Song", to leave one feeling in joyously buoyant mood. Next comes the simply-titled "Fish", which is a bit of a tuneless mess to be perfectly honest, with the discordant music thrown together in a seemingly haphazard fashion. This is a fish that would have been better left in the ocean. The only good thing about this musical mash-up is it's less than 90 seconds long. Moving swiftly on now with the dreamweaving "Meditation of the Snake", a swirling and twisting magic carpet ride of transcendental ambience that washes over the listener like a blissful dreamwave of sound.

Opening Side Two now, we're going fishing with the 9-minute aquatic suite, "Salmon Song", and it's a pretty good catch too. It's a psychedelic rainbow trout swimming in a sea of spacey guitars, combined with some heavy sonorous riffing, and not forgetting those trademark Hillage guitar glissandos which soar right up into the stratosphere. This is one fish you won't want to throw back into the sea. And now we come to the album highlight, the 15-minute-long seven-piece suite, "Aftaglid", to bring the album to a dramatic and powerful conclusion. This is a real psychedelicatessen of musical styles, featuring gently pastoral acoustics, wild psychedelic riffing and Middle Eastern mantras, all combined together into a magnificent musical melange of sound.

"Fish Rising" is an album full of psychedelic delights, featuring super soar-away soloing, spacey New Age ambience, dynamic keyboard virtuosity, and jaunty Jazz-Rock, all combined together into a delicious potpourri of Canterbury Scene music. This fish-themed album will have you hooked.

Let's be clear about how Steve Hillage was stuck in the Canterbury tag for no other reason but his past Gong experience. As I have mentioned a million times, labelling is just a way of trying to keep order in a ruthless & naturally chaotic world, more when it comes to such abstractions as sonic air waves.

Steve Hillage is an epitome of the spirit of the progressive music artist. He portrays to perfection the hunger for new means of music expression. Maybe his music composition skills are not always up to that spirit's challenge but he is still relentless in his personal quest, if not actually in music composition, at least it is in true poetic electric guitar playing intentions and performance.

So now that I wrote that, it was all meant to underline how he has no problem in collaborating with other musicians as in the case of this Evan Marc + Steve Hillage - Dreamtime Submersible (2008), in which he works alongside: Electronic/ambient/analog/chillchillout/downtempo/electronica/idm/modular/psybient/psychill & Bluetech's producer Evan Marc renowned in the electronic music world which grows outside these PA´s P.E. walls.

The combination showcases two recognizable music languages fusioned as one, where in fact the listener can detect Steve Hillage's trademark guitar style blending into electronic music perfection Marc's own means of expression.

Exciting, vivacious & intelligent CONTEMPORARY electronic music. If you are expecting anything else, music composition wise, but Evan Marc's sound and the thrill of Steve Hillage transfigured electric guitar emblematic style working wonders, don't get even close and enjoy something else.

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