ZONES

This is a weird old odds-and-sods collection from Hawkwind. Side 1 comes from two sources in December 1980 - the Lewisham Odeon gig gives us Dust of Time (misnamed here as The Island) and Motorway City, whilst the three preceding tracks (or rather, two tracks plus a brief intro) were recorded in a mobile studio in the same month. Flip over to side B, and we've jumped forward two years to an October gig on the Choose Your Masques tour.

Whilst this might have been useful when Zones first came out, subsequent releases have left it entirely redundant. Though not from the same gig, Coded Languages gives us a full live set from the 1982 tour recorded somewhat after side B here, and incorporating all of its material. Meanwhile, the 3CD rerelease of Levitation includes the most complete version of the Lewisham 1980 gig yet, including live runthroughs of the two studio pieces here (Running Through My Back Brain and Dangerous Vision) which are more than satisfactory substitutes for the studio material here.

Still, the album cover is very pretty.