What can we say about Hawkwind? Certinaly nothing describes their prime-era better than Julian Copes words - "They were a collection of disreputable star rats fuelled by a battery of hallucinogenic influences and united only by an incorrigible sense of psi-powered, pre-1976 cosmic punk rock attitude broken off and gobbled as though it was their sole means of sustenance while playing riffs into the grooves with an relentless head of steam. The rhythmic repetitions offset by wordless trance-chants are hypnotic to the core and the whole mess is performed at raw and rambunctious paces as it blazes with one damn racket with nowhere to go but hurtling through space at the sound of speed, anyway. Towards anything and everything. With the jaws of black oblivion not far behind nipping at their respective asses they were already in process of playing off of so furiously. For they sank a couple hundred pounds of pressure into one square foot and punched it in with a single, swift and confident stroke of a psychic ball-peen hammer at the only point on reality’s windscreen overlooking the edge of oblivion where in its entirety, its safety glass pane turned into a sightless fog of equal, fracturing veins before shuddering weightlessly apart and floating gently outwards into the future".

Our cast of stellar devotees surely know all this and put it to good use in their interpretations of classic Hawktracks in the Sonic Attack triology of 7"s.

Sonic Attack (Psychelelic Warlords) are Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno and White Hills. Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno put Brainstorm through their space metal freakout mangler. The tentative grip on the original tracks form & structure soon warps into sonic mahem and the space rock freak-out which ensues levitates, spiraling upwards and out into the beyond into a shining, transcendental pinnacle. On Be yourself White Hills put the wig out horse before the mellow cart and both trot entirely through a haze of distortion & grit. The uber-distorted drums burn unabated throughout the track’s psychic rollercoastering while the lead guitar builds and builds continually as flames burst from Mothership’s fuselage, pushed far beyond the limits of its already over-taxed capabilities until finally a soft landing ensues in the familiar chorus.

Limited edition 7" in full colour picture sleeve.

Nov 2008, TR014.

Acid Mothers Temple - Brainstorm
White Hills - Be Yourself

More lunatic lunacy as Makoto and Co tweak the cerebral nodules with a seriously trip wired version of the titanic cosmic mother ship that is ’brainstorm’, as previously mentioned this tripped out leviathan hogged the best part of 14 minutes of groove space on the bands defining ‘space ritual’ set here in the hands of AMT best described as damaged, this mind warping colossus is the stuff of cranial combustions, with the effects dials hiked up to eleven these hairy psychedelic overlords go kaleidoscopically nuclear on this out there sonic exploration of freaked out meltdown impending locked groove incantations though be mindful to check out those impishly neat b-movie twanging Cramps styled ’Human Fly’ moments that greet its entrance before that is being buried beneath the festering feedback firework show.
And though I can scarcely believe it myself - admit it how often do you find AMT being trumped on a split release well bugger us if New York’s White Hills don’t upset the book makers odds, admittedly - and I hasten to add - too much embarrassment - this lot have never previously featured in these pages though now we have them firmly in our sights you can bet your arse we’ll be off sourcing the goodies we’ve so far foolishly missed. ‘be yourself’ originally appearing on Hawkwind’s debut has always taken up a place in our affections along with ‘mirror of illusion’ though left in the hands of White Hills is pummelled and rendered fractured and fragmented to near unrecognisable excesses, the loose jazz montages of the original sublimely replaced by caustic sheens of distressed discordance so hot with frenzied freakish friction that they literally have the effect of leaving third degree burns on your psyche though that said they do cleverly bring things back from the edge momentarily towards the finale for a near chord for chord carbon copy reprise.
Amazing stuff.
Losing Today


AMT start off almost like a normal rock band before bringing in the spacey bloopy noises and wigging out until they reach that patented cosmic chaos plateau thing they do so well. White Hills aren't familiar to me but their side fares much better, with 'Be Yourself' wailing along like a psychedelic rocket blowing through your broken speakers into your frazzled mind.. We did have fun playing with the runout groove on the AMT side though, play it on 45rpm and it's almost minimal hip-hop. We do like to entertain ourselves..
Norman Records


Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
Volume 2, "Psychedelic Warlords", features Acid Mothers Temple, who are an obvious choice to pay homage to a band who was doing the AMT thing 30 years ago, and in true AMT fashion, Kawabata and company go for it, covering "Brainstorm" although it's difficult to tell, as it's buried under sheets of wild freaked out psych guitar and blown out space rock effects EVERYWHERE. It really doesn't sound all that different from any number of other AMT jams, but that's basically because every AMT jam is a tribute to Hawkwind, isn't it?
AMT are matched up with NYC's White Hills, who ditch much of their usual spaceiness for something a bit harder, tackling "Be Yourself" with crunchy chugging guitars, pounding drums, wild tangles of distortion drenched leads over the top, the band not so much covering the original, as transforming it into an endless psychedelic hard rock loop, the band churning and grinding out a steady stream of psychedelia over that endless main riff, before drifting off into a cloud of glittering soft psych shimmer.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!
Aquarius Records


A real contender for psych-rock single of the year, this 7" finds two of today's foremost acts in the field (White Hills and Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno) taking on classic Hawkwind material. 'Brainstorm' is ravaged by AMT, who thrash out in fine style with an expanded arsenal of swooping oscillators and spooky theremin-style pitchshifting. It's an absolute riot, but White Hills prove themselves to be more than a match, tearing 'Be Yourself' a new one (to coin a phrase) laying on the fuzz by the barrow-load, cutting through the fudge with some class-A shred and all-round soloing majesty. Oof..
Boomkat


This is a series of three split 7”s celebrating the music of Hawkwind. Each of these bands, well known on the underground psych rock scene, give their own unique take to 6 songs from the 70s Hawkwind and some of them really are awesome at channelling that stoned spirit of Hawkwind. Both Mudhoney (Urban Guerrilla) in a slightly punked up version and Mugstar, with a killer version of Born to Go, slay. Bardo Pond, give a stoned nod to Lord of Light while Kinski take on Master of the Universe and take it really slow like the original version from the Dawn of Hawkwind CD. The White Hills take on Be Yourself from the first Hawkwind record and do a pretty cool and psyched out version coming into the theme of the song at the end. Acid Mothers Temple go full throttle into their psychic universe with Brainstorm. A brilliant set of three 7” records. Good luck finding them as they are sold out at the label source.
Aural Innovations


The geniuses over at Irish label Trensmat cooked up a great 7" collection that pulls together the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, White Hills, Bardo Pond, Mudhoney, Mugstar and Kinski all covering Hawkwind. With the covers of the series all being a different color variation on the Space Ritual cover this set is completely necessary to own in its entirety.
First up on the platter is a heavy and expectedly spaced out split between prevailing psych behemoths Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno and hometown NYC heroes White Hills. White Hills hit up one of my favorites from the S/T Hawkwind album and take it cosmic in their rendition. On the flip, the Mothers, as expected, rip holes in the ozone via guitar grime and feedback energy. It's hard to have a favorite in this series, and I'll certainly reserve judgment till I cover them all but pick this one up while you still can.
Raven Sings the Blues


Ireland-based label Trensmat pay their respects to space-rock pioneers Hawkwind through the labels favourite medium: the 7". Over this trilogy of vinyl-only releases, six very different outfits cover their heroes and mostly keep things relatively faithful to the source material.
You can trust Acid Mothers Temple, talking on 'Brainstorm' (from the 1972 LP Doremi Fasol Latido) on their side of the split with White Hills, to go down the typically freak-out route. And seeing as they are the band most overtly inspired by Hawkwind - to the point of being their tribute band - their entry sounds like, well, Acid Mothers Temple. On the flipside, White Hills take on 'Be Yourself' in their own fuzz/psych-rock mode. As for the rest, Bardo Pond and Kinski go head to head with renditions of 'Lord of Light' and 'Master of the Universe' on the relatively straightforward split, as expected doing Hawkwind filtered through their signature styles, while Mugstar submit a facsimile of 'Born To Go' on their flipside with Mudhoney, whose MC5-style rendition of the 1973 single 'Urban Guerilla' stands out as a definite highlight.
A great idea all in all, and one that will have fans,collectors and Hawkwind junkies foaming at the mouth.
Rock-a-Rolla


This collection of split singles finds modern psych and hard rock bands, each owing some debt to Hawkwind in their own approaches to music, paying tribute with fairly faithful covers. They’re split up by mood: Mudhoney and Mugstar get the rockers, AMT and White Hills take the more abstract numbers (White Hills’ read of “Be Yourself” being the most revelatory of the entire set), and Bardo Pond and Kinski splitting up the weighty, psychedelic side of things. Reminiscent of the ‘90s in every way – in particular the Ceres Records’ comp Assassins of Silence/Hundred Watt Violence, in itself a double-LP tribute to said space rockers – this is a straight-up pleasure, somewhat of the guilt-studded variety. However, all the participants step up, Mudhoney’s Peel Session take of “Urban Guerrilla” having blown me away when I caught them live some years back, and you could certainly do worse than support high quality bands covering one of the touchstones of modern intelligent rock music in all its squalor. Lovely artwork.
Dusted


This forms one part of a trilogy of tributes to Hawkwind from Ireland's Trensmat records, all expressed within that most un-Hawkwindlike of formats, the split 7”. It does at least play at 33 though, so calm down, you’ve still got time to skin up. As you might well expect from AMT paying tribute to the Hawklords, their take on ‘Brainstorm’ kicks straight into a demented orgy of ring modulated oscillator carnage, stereo-panning wah-wah hyper-shred, senseless, garbled chanting and extensive exploration of that good ol’ ‘falling down a spiralling time tunnel’ sound effect. The inbuilt limitations of the Cosmic Inferno’s trio line-up keeps thing vaguely under control with a steady motorik churn, but largely this is just another identikit blast of the kind of beyond-gratuitous multiple overdubbed cartoon psychedelic splatter Kawabata could knock out in his sleep, and god knows, probably does.
White Hills – a band I’ve always meant to check out but have never quite got around to – are the clear winners here then, slicing up ‘Be Yourself’ into a monstrously heavy bass groove, martial drum riff and some distinct and vicious psyche-overload guitar, the whole trio compressed down to a single, floor-shaking entity, like some mud splattered behemoth beating its morbid way through a swamp of speaker fuzz, until it’s buried by the rise of the obligatory oscillations, fades out, and, brilliantly, re-emerges as the full realisation of Hawkwind’s hypnotic, glam stomp of a two chord chorus/mantra – BE YOURSELF, indeed. Absolute ‘storming the gates of heaven’ material all things considered, and I wish Trensmat could have shelled out to have this one end on the locked groove the song is just crying out for; that would have been beautiful.
Stereo Sanctity


This is a series of three split 7”s celebrating the music of Hawkwind. Each of these bands, well known on the underground psych rock scene give their own unique take to 6 songs from the 70s Hawkwind and some of them really are awesome at channelling that stoned spirit of Hawkwind. Both Mudhoney (Urban Guerrilla) in a slightly punked up version and Mugstar, with a killer version of Born to Go, slay. Bardo Pond, give a stoned nod to Lord of Light while Kinski take on Master of the Universe and take it really slow like the original version from the Dawn of Hawkwind CD. The White Hills taken on Be Yourself from the first Hawkwind record and do a pretty cool and psyched out version coming into the theme of the song at the end. Acid Mothers temple go full throttle into their psychic universe with Brainstorm. A brilliant set of 3 7” records. Good luck finding them as they are sold out at the label source. I got mine on Ebay.
Lowcut


Three in Trensmats Sonic Attack Series of singles, on each of which two groups cover two Hawkwind tunes with stellar results. From the White Panther spuzz of "Urban Guerilla" (courtesy of Mudhoney) to the fully smoked squiggle-dive into "Lord of Light" (by Bardo Pond), this is a fantastic set of records, paying tribute to a group thats not as well remembered as they ought to be. The sleeves are excellent too - a nod to the departed brilliance of designer Barney Bubbles. My only regret is that they didnt ask Wurm to tackle "Silver Machine".
The Wire