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Album Details

• Artist: Hawkwind
• Album: Weird Tapes 1 - Sonic Assassins Dave Brock
• Label: Weird
• Year of Release: 1980
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: gwhill on 2013-03-13

This fine CD is a great compilation. The recordings presented here are from several different sources. Some of them are from a 1977 live show, while others are Dave Brock solo pieces. There is also one Hawklords studio recording. The musicians shown on this disc are Brock, Bob Calvert, Harvey Bainbridge, Paul Hayles, Steve Swindells and Martin Griffin.

A hard edged drone with spoken word over top starts “Over the Top,” the first of the live songs. It begins gradually building with spoken word. The spoken word segment is basically an introduction to the whole show. The actual song comes in as space oriented spoken vocals. As the cut continues, it becomes a great Hawk jam and the vocals become more a combination of spoken and sung. This one segues into the next cut. “Magnu” is a Hawk classic. A hard edged Hawk jam, this one features Brock on vocals as opposed to Calvert on the last cut. This is a strong number with sci fi/fantasy lyrics. The song builds in a classic Hawkjam styles as it moves to segue into the next number.  “Angels of Life” is a solid rocking Hawkwind number with lots of swirling keyboard parts. The arrangement is very cool through this jam. The arrangement here really calls to mind the Space Ritual era. “Freefall” begins with some great spacey keyboard textures. These textures are all Hawkwind, but with definite Pink Floyd sort of elements in place. This one drops down to more sedate sections, then percussion takes dominance after a time. The song begins to build a bit as the vocals enter. This one is a great spacey number with quite a few changes. This one again moves directly into the next track. “Death Trap” is the final live song.  Frantic hard edged, almost punky sorts of textures make up the majority of this classic Hawk number. The keyboard textures on this one take on a lot more jazzy sort of texture than on the original.

“Nuclear Toy” is a chord oriented, rather droning sort of number. An almost soaring drone starts over the top, and then science fiction oriented, processed vocals, mostly spoken work comes in overlaid. More Hawkwind space keyboard modes take the dominance for a while, then those keys turn more melodic. These keyboard textures begin a build into the next cut. Considering that this is a Dave Brock demo and that one is a Hawklords studio number, it seems like they may have been built after the fact for that type of sequence. Whatever the mechanics involved, though, it works.

“Who's Gonna Win the War” is the sole group (Hawklords) studio piece.  A slower cut, this is extremely powerful here, and the chorus is very catchy. Next we’re back into Dave Brock solo territory.  More spacey keys begin “The Dream 1” and a high pitched whine sort of sound begins to emerge over the top of that. This runs straight into the next piece. The spacey keyboard textures become lower in nature and atmospheric, and a tape track of the whole assassination related to Oswald become the only vocals for a song appropriately entitled “Assassination.” As the piece carries on, it starts to become more and more chaotic and cacophonous. This is also rather hypnotic at the same time. As the last cut ends another keyboard texture, atmospheric and almost white noise oriented becomes the mode of “The Dream 2.” Other patterns come out, but with no real melody line, more rhythmic in nature. The keys change to a scream, then back to more sci-fi tones. Another screaming build takes over to end the piece. “Satellite” is a keyboard based cut with audio footage of a John Glenn space mission.

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