CRYSTAL MACHINE

Recorded after the end of his stint in Gong and before he joined Hawkwind, Tim Blake's debut solo album Crystal machine is a part-studio part-live affair, documenting music composed to accompany a pioneering laser light show. Musically speaking, it's mostly in line with the work being produced at around the same time by Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze, with enough callbacks to Tim's earlier work in Gong to distinguish it from those pioneers of Krautrock- derived electronic music. It doesn't present anything to revolutionise the genre, but it more than holds its own against the likes of, say, Tangerine Dream's Ricochet or Schulze's Moondawn.