House, Simon - Spiral Galaxy Revisited (CD)

Genre:

Prog

Label:

Black Widow

Format:

Condition:

New

Regular price €10,90 (Tax included. Shipping calculated at checkout.)

Very acceptable solo album from 2001by the former Hawkwind man and ex-member of High Tide. Playing a variety of instruments including a barrage of keyboards and sound generators as well as his trademark violin, this is a swirling sprawling epic of space rock that certainly complements his work with Hawkwind. The album features original compositions and covers of Hawkwind obscurities such as The Forge Of Vulcan and Spiral Galaxy 28948 from Warriors On The Edge Of Time.

Black Widow Records

TRACKLIST:
1. Spiral Galaxy 28948
2. The Forge of Vulcan
3. Hall of the Mountain Grill
4. Lunar Sea
5. Ozone
6. Chronoglide Skyway
7. Gothyk
8. Glencoe

Simon House has a career stretching back as far as the late sixties when he was a member of the band Hightide. Hightide recorded two popular underground albums for Liberty Records in 1969 and 1970 and were label mates of Hawkwind and also shared the same management company Clearwater Productions. Of course Hawkwind would go on to play a larger part in Simon House's life further down the line. The two albums that Hightide recorded in 1969 and 1979 were the debut Space Shanties and the self-titled Hightide from 1970. Both of these albums were compared favourably to bigger bands at the time like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin although in reality there was little to connect them other than the time period in which these albums appeared.

Simon House next moved onto a more experimental band in the shape of The Third Ear Band who recorded for Harvest records. The Third Ear Band recorded a number of albums for Harvest including the soundtrack to the Roman Polanski film Macbeth that was a critical and small commercial success.

During 1974 Simon House was asked to join Hawkwind having been out of the music business for a short time Simon agreed and joined the band on an American tour although as he didn't have a work permit he was officially unable to play with the band. In reality he did and that tour marked an extended stay with the band until 1978 when he moved on once again to work with David Bowie. It was originally thought that Simon House would return following the tour that spawned the live David Bowie album Stage however House seemed more than happy to stay with Bowie and remained an integral part of Bowie's band for many years. Simon did eventually work again with Hawkwind but not until 1989 when he joined following the departure of Huw Lloyd Langton.

In 1994 Simon House released his debut solo album entitled Yassasim.

Spiral Galaxy Revisited was originally released in 2001 and is a mixture of solo material including tracks like Lunar Sea and Glencoe and material first heard for Hawkwind such as The Forge Of Vulcan from Quark Strangeness And Charm and Spiral Galaxy 28948 which originally appeared on the Hawkwind album Warriors On The Edge Of Time. (For those interested 28948 was Simon House's birth date.)

The album has been remastered for release and will undoubtedly appeal to fans of both Simon House and of course Hawkwind.