ELOY | "Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes" Hannover GR - 1979 - EMI Electrola [CDP 538-7 92021] Hailing from Hannover, Germany, Eloy were just about the longest-lived progressive rock act in the country, releasing their first album in 1971 and retiring only recently. Ironically, Eloy are often not considered a true representative of Krautrock music, because stylistically they shared little of either the free-form music of Munich and Berlin or the 'motorik' music of the Rheinland. Instead, they are often lumped into the family of largely British entities like Pink Floyd, Van der Graaf Generator, Nektar [Britons themselves transplanted to Germany], and Yes. Guitarist / vocalist Frank Bornemann was the undisputed leader of Eloy, so that despite constant line-up changes, a high-standard of albums was maintained for many years through his vision. The period of the mid-70s to early-80s was arguably their most creative era, including the string of albums with one-word titles, 'Floating,' 'Inside,' 'Dawn,' 'Ocean,' 'Colours,' and 'Planets,' broken up only by the particular album I've chosen here, 'Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes.' 
While I could have chosen any from among this suite of albums [and indeed, any and all of these I can
recommend], 'Silent Cries' gets my vote because it is without question the spaciest of the
lot. Bornemann's guitar style, in one sense Gilmouresque, is still unique because of
how he bends the strings in a way that causes various notes to sound 'scooped,' if you know what
I mean. That interesting effect, and the fluid, light touch he has on the fretboard
makes his playing something to behold.In addition, the deft application of thick layers of synthesizer [played by Detlev Schmidtchen] and occasional female space-whispery chorales during the many long, winding passages throughout the album give the whole suite of songs a cosmic-journey sensation. There is just enough of actual full-band rock herein to say that this is genuine space rock, but the absolute highlight of the album for me is the quiet, motionless beauty of the penultimate track, "De labore solis," truly the proper soundtrack for floating in space around a distant nebula. Bornemann's vocals [as always] are offered in English, and he has a strong voice with proper pitch, though his very heavy German accent may turn some listeners off. Personally, I've always liked his Teutonic-flavored voice, and such accents in general. Some prog-rock fans have also complained that 'Silent Cries' is too much a copy of Floyd's mid-70s albums like 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Animals,' and although it has a similar overall feel, I think this criticism is unfair. At least a couple of Eloy's outstanding 1970s works belong in any proper collection of space- and prog-rock, and I would argue that 'Silent Cries' must be among them. Here lies the great black hole of space rock [aka 'the Eighties'], wherein virtually no Space rock, Krautrock, nor proper psychedelic music of any great significance was to be heard throughout the multiverse, but for a few scattered moments of excellence by Hawkwind and Eloy, the only two bands of any note that managed to somehow survive the period more or less intact. Luckily, the onset of the second 'free-festival' movement in the UK and eventually the emergent power of the internet, which could bring small constituencies of like-minded fans together with niche-bands previously unloved in their remote corner of the Earth, fostered a revival of 'neo-psychedelia' and space rock around the world. To some extent, it continues to this day, though the total number of noteworthy releases / tours seems to have diminished slightly in the last five years, suggesting a peak in the mid- to late-90s. SHIP OF FOOLS | "Close Your Eyes [Forget the World]" UK - 1993 - Dreamtime [CDKTB 18] It's almost certainly a crime that I could generate this Top 10 Space rock albums without including something by the venerable Ozric Tentacles, yet that's what has happened here. Of course, the Ozrics put out a wonderful string of excellent CD's during their heyday in the early 90s, from 'Erpland' to 'Arborescence,' but in the end none of them stood out from amongst the others enough to be chosen on such a short list. But there must be at least one CD here from what I call the 'free-festy' era, i.e., the period from roughly 1988 to 1995 when a large number of mostly British bands were performing spacey neo-psychedelic music. 
The Delerium label, the ancestral home of Porcupine Tree among others, hosted many of
these bands and these releases are almost without exception worthwhile buys [Don't miss Dead Flowers' 'Altered State
Circus', a CD that nearly captured this very spot in my list].Of course, free festivals [eg., Stonehenge Summer Solstice, and the original Glastonbury Fayre] started way back in the original psychedelic era, championed by the likes of Hawkwind, Gong / Here & Now and others, but the second wave over a decade later produced perhaps even more touring bands in total. Of these, Ship of Fools was one that came and went rather quickly, but their 1993 debut CD was perhaps the most impressive of all. Titled 'Close Your Eyes [Forget the World],' it's not hard to see what these guys were trying to inspire... cosmic escapism. And true to its word, the eight tracks all take your out into orbit, even if it only happens in your imagination. Ship of Fools performed a sort of 'kinder, gentler blanga', that had the same marching or rolling momentum to the rhythms as 70's Hawkwind, but done in a much less aggressive manner [more in line with Eloy perhaps]. "Passage by Night," "L-Sd2," and "Star Jumper" are the titles of some of the best space-grooves on 'Close your Eyes.' Very appropriate themes, don't you think? And if you, like me, enjoy a touch of flute in your space rock, check out Graham Wilkes' transcendent playing on "Western Lands." 'Out there Somewhere' followed a year later, and some years later the two were re-released together in a special 2CD package, which I recommend tracking down. Even more recently, a single CD retrospective ['Let's Get this Mother Outta Here'] came out on the Snapper label that featured some tracks from both studio discs plus a bonus video item. In the mid-90s, Ship of Fools broke up, but some of the members continued on for a pair of albums [mediocre IMHO] under the name Nine Invisibles. That shouldn't diminish the greatness of their very first offering. The 'free festy'era produced quite a lot of excellent trippy music: check out notable others such as Mandragora, Strobe, Dr.Brown, SunDial [don't miss 'Other Way Out' & 'Return Journey' as both albums have be re-issued by Relapse for the US market -editor], Mr. Quimby's Beard, Tribe of Cro, Nukli, Omnia Opera, Soma, Tubliah Dog... oh, and the Ozrics too, of course. SKY CRIES MARY | "This Timeless Turning" Seattle WA - 1994 - World Domination/Warner Bros [WD2 0018] American space rock really didn't exist in any true sense until the '90s rebirth, despite the tremendous psychedelic rock movement in California [and Texas] during the late 1960's [maybe only the quirky, melodic space-pop of the Silver Apples, the New York duo of Simeon and Danny Taylor, came close]. However, the modern internet-fueled era has seen an underground explosion of space rock acts in the United States [and Canada], perhaps the most commercially successful being Seattle's Sky Cries Mary [yes, the name was based on fellow-Seattlite Jimi Hendrix' "Wind Cries Mary"]. 
Founded by vocalist Roderick Romero and the pair of musician / songwriters who went on to form
the popular Beatlesque pop-rock group the Posies, SCM began with an odd, dreary sort of
music that resembled neither band to come. SCM-Version 2.0 was a completely different
ensemble. And a hell of a lot better.Romero's wife Anisa, herself an accomplished painter, joined the band as co-lead vocalist [and cover artist], adding her ethereal mezzo-soprano to Roderick's more nasally tenor. In addition, a full contingent of players on guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums were brought on board [supplanting the erstwhile Posies], as well as Todd Robbins [aka DJ Fallout], who with his turntables and playback units successfully merged the oft-maligned scratches and beats of urban/hip-hop music into a legit space-rock act. 'This Timeless Turning' was the second full-length CD release from this version of the band, and is their creative highlight. "Every Iceberg is Afire" is the [lone] hip-hoppish pop tune on 'TTT' [mirrored by the similar tune 'Moonbathing' from the followup], which likely was the kind of thing that led Warner Brothers to temporarily pick up the band. Despite these brief moments of pandering to the unclean masses [including the inevitable dance remixes], the bulk of the nearly 80 minutes of music on 'TTT' is serious progressive / Space rock of an inventive and unique nature. I get the impression that the band members were all but ignorant of much of the Euro-centric history of Space rock [as above), so their sound is one that seems to defy discussion of influence. 'This Timeless Turning' covers the spectrum from long ambient works [e.g., the 15-minute "4:00 a.m."] to the driving riffs of "Scapegoat" to the frenzied climax of "Deep Sunless Sea." The twin-pairing of "These Old Bones," a dainty and beautiful ethereal piece, segued into "Stretched," a full-on rock assault based on the same musical theme, demonstrates the band's full dynamic range. Sky Cries Mary broke up in the late 90s, but reformed in 2004 with nearly the identical lineup and has recently released a 2CD live package titled 'Here and Now' that I also heartily recommend. In fact, because it includes excellent versions of seven of the tracks from 'TTT' as well as "An Ant, the Stars, an Owl, and its Prey," the spaciest and most wonderful of all SCM tracks, I think it may even be a better choice for someone new to the wonders of SCM. FARFLUNG | "25,000 Feet per Second" Los Angeles CA - 1995 - Flipside [FLIP68] Our second entry from the US comes from southern California, home to an extended family of space and electronic music centered around such talented folks as Tommy Grenas, Paul Fox, and Len Del Rio. In addition to Farflung, the purest Space rock entity, the family included other projects such as Pressurehed, Anubian Lights, The Brain, and Zero Gravity. In addition, members have acted on a number of occasions as the backing band for Hawkwind's Nik Turner on tours of the US and Canada. 
Farflung's debut album '25K Ft/sec.', released by the alt-indie music magazine Flipside [Farflung then
moving on to the Cleopatra / Purple Pyramid group], is my choice for the premier American
Space rock album. Sadly, it has already become quite difficult to find, but hopefully it will
one day be made available again in greater numbers, perhaps as part of a retrospective package.Most of the seven songs on '25K' are pure Hawkwind-style 'blanga', complete with the semi-chanted lyrics, buzzing guitars, piercing synth noises, and rumbling basslines. This continues nearly unabated following the two minutes of spacey calm that introduces the opener 'Solar Electric', in the end a mind-numbing blangariffic tune. The title-track is a similar, but slowed-down and more deliberate version of the same -just brilliant. Reminiscent of the proto-punkishness of early Hawkwind [eg., "Urban Guerilla," "Lost Johnny"]is "Greater Waters", with a raw, edgier feel and the mocking tone in Grenas' vocals here. "Landing on Cydonia" then finally retreats slightly to reveal that Farflung are quite excellent at doing the laid-back and 'floating' style of space rock as well. In the last decade, Farflung [& friends] have continued to make some great music both in the studio and on stage, in parallel to their ongoing side projects, and the core band vows to soldier on despite fewer sightings in recent years. Hopefully, '25K Ft./sec.' can still be found in the collector's market for those who are keen enough to seek it out. And if you can't find it, send word to Tommy G and implore him to make it commercially available again [and tell him to raise the mastering volume this time... no other CD I own is recorded at such low level]. This is a Space rock classic that should not be lost to the obscurities of time. KORAI OROM | "1997" Budapest HU - 1997 - Szerzoi Kiadas [KORA 003] The final [and most recent] of my Top 10 Space rock classics is really not so new anymore, now being nearly a decade old already. Along with the Sky Cries Mary selection, the third studio CD by Korai Orom [titled simply '1997' to follow in kind with predecessors '1995' and '1996,' and the cassette-only '1993'] represents the modern face of Space rock. Having visited Budapest myself to attend the giant 2004 Sziget festival, there can be no doubt that the Hungarian capital remains a hot-bed of space rock to this day. Other like-minded bands such as Colorstar, Masfel, TanuTuva, Mantra Porno, and Uzgin Uver [all present on this one occasion, much to my delight] constitute a real 'movement' in organick / tribal / psychedelic / progressive / dance-rock. Well, that's too complicated... let's just call it the 'Budapest' sound for simplicity's sake. 
Although I've caught Korai Orom in concert on four occasions, I came too late to the scene
to hear any of the material off this one, my favorite album of the 1990s. Instead, they've retired
all of these songs in favor of newer material, including those from the pair
of albums ['2000' and '2001'] subtitled as 'Sound & Vision,' and luckily this later stuff is
nearly as good.True to this ideal, the band puts a high priority on the top-quality lightshow, and their concerts induce the audience into non-stop motion. I've never had so much fun as seeing and hearing Korai Orom on stage. As someone who dislikes nearly all so-called 'dance' and 'techno' music, Korai Orom produces a type of 'hypno-trance-rock' that is irresistible. Here, nothing is stale and artificial. Like their albums, Korai Orom does not give titles [at least officially] to the individual songs either. And although the music is largely instrumental [no lyrics in the form of verses and choruses], the band has over the years added more and more 'vocalizations,' usually in the form of chanted words or short phrases in key places in between the music, following in the form of some modern reggae / dub artists. Not surprisingly then, you will hear the occasional reggae bass line used as a foundation for some tracks, a la the Ozric Tentacles and others. Otherwise, Korai Orom music builds up in many layers from the pure tribal-style rhythmic base [three percussionists!] to be topped off with lots of interplay between the lead instruments. Loopy, circular, echoed, and arpeggiated guitar licks abound, dueling and crosslinking with phaser-like synthesizer sounds, the chants and shouts, and the occasional bit of trumpet, didgeridoo or other odd sounds and incidentals. As I said, it's irresistible and if you never thought you could boogie to Space rock [and this is truly 100% Space rock in its own unique way], you need to hear this album and be convinced. Note: the picture here is of a more recent CD issue; the original digipack sleeve depicted only the three-winged pinwheel design against a pure white background, and did not include the "Welcome to the Hippie Future" subtitle. |
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