NIK TURNER
The Final Frontier PURPLE PYRAMID
Ex-Hawkwind sax magus makes bid for space rock supremacy.
As even the casual observer will probably know, the saga of Hawkwind has as many twists, turns and franchises attached to it as the show which Nik Turner’s new album alludes to. But while the various strands of Star Trek exist in a peaceful continuum, relations between the various Hawkwind camps have sometimes descended into open warfare. Chief among the opposing sides is the official Dave Brock-led band and Turner’s myriad pick-up groups, many of which have featured ex-Hawkwind members and have sometimes tried to claim the name for their own. The plot thickened last year with the release of Hawkwind’s Road To Utopia, an orchestral/acoustic re-interpretation of old classics in collaboration with Mike Batt, which many longstanding fans have been less than pleased with, causing further divisions in the Hawk universe.
VERY MUCH THE WORK OF A CONTEMPORARY SPACE ROCK OUTFIT.
Just to stir things up a little more, deliberately so or not, Turner’s latest album in a late-career revival cleaves even closer to the space rock template his former band pioneered, potentially giving Hawkfans what they aren’t currently getting from the Brock camp… Opening track Out Of Control certainly comes out fighting, its stomping riff recalling Be Yourself from the very first Hawkwind album. Then follows churning wahwahed guitar, chirruping electronics and misty-eyed Mellotron, a veritable compendium of sonic signifiers for the faithful. Turner’s increasingly frail voice is low in the mix, but there’s ample room for his reliably maverick sax playing. The predatory lope of Thunder Rider – Turner’s on stage alter ego with Hawkwind – follows suit, the strange aquatic tone he wrings from his instrument still unmistakeable.
What’s clear is that the band assembled around Turner, with key members including UK Subs’ Nicky Garratt and
Die Krupps’ Jürgen Engler, know exactly what they’re doing, fashioning a sound that acknowledges their leader’s history, but isn’t stuck in the past – this is very much the work of a contemporary space rock outfit. But it isn’t all just amorphous cosmic riffage. Interstellar Aliens is like memories of a life in the dream factory recalled, its melancholic vibe enhanced by some magisterial violin from ex-Hawk Simon House. And the echoing bass of the extended title track creates an uneasy atmosphere, Turner’s flute weaving around the misty wreckage of a spaceship graveyard which, in a flash of 70s-style spoken word trippiness, is “locked inside deep space and endless time”. Back To The Ship inhabits similar territory, but just as things threaten to get too portentous, it kicks up a gear with a classic piece of stun guitar attack.
Is this the final frontier? Don’t bet on it…