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 In the 1970s, Steve Hillage was simultaneously a cult guitar hero wowing huge crowds at festivals like Deeply Vale and a straggly-bearded symbol of everything that punk reviled. In 1976, the year of “Anarchy In The UK”, Hillage had his numbers mixed up and was flying 1967’s freak flag high on L, which featured covers of The Beatles’ “It’s All Too Much” and Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (this reissue adds an “Eight Miles High” remake done with kindred spirit Todd Rundgren). With his Hendrix-like ditties about “Electrick Gypsies” and slick virtuosity, it’s hard to think of an artist who’s been more hopelessly out of synch with the zeitgeist. Yet now that our sense of pop time and historical sequence is utterly jumbled thanks to retromania and downloading, it’s easy to decontexualise Hillage’s music and salvage what’s good about it. The clean separation of the production on 1975’s Fish Rising might have seemed clinical at a time when the “cutting edge” was Dr Feelgood recording their debut in mono, but nowadays that kind of CD-friendly gloss and filigree just sounds normal. The guitarist’s flashy pyrotechnique is frequently a thing of sheer splendour. And Hillage could be lyrical when he toned down the quicksilver-nimble acrobatics and went into meander mode. There’s plenty of that on Fish, whose aqueous textures and aqua-utopian concept pick up where Hendrix’s “1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” left off. Another thing that’s striking about Hillage’s music by the time of 1977’s Motivation Radio is its sheer funk, the hot rhythm section of Joe Blocker and Reggie McBride shimmying and strutting on a par with the Blockheads....full text |
| Intuitivemusic |
| The Wrasse label will reissue a series albums produced during the late 90’s by guitarist and electronic music producer Steve Hillage (System 7, Gong) to Arabic artists Rachid Taha, and superstar singer Khaled next March 14th. Hillage also played on the albums himself and co-authored many tracks. These recordings are credited as some of the best electronic ethnic works form the 90’s....full text |
| Yahoo |
| For to Next followed Steve Hillage's last effort by a few years, and during the interim the evolving synth/new wave scene seems to have captured his imagination. For all intents and purposes a collaboration with keyboardist Miquette Giraudy, the album features relatively light and bouncy synthesizers augmented by Hillage's sometimes spacy guitar solos and sleepy vocals. Gone is Hillage's upbeat mysticism, replaced by the fashionably bleak outlook popularized by synth rock acts like Ultravox, Visage, and Gary Numan. Thus the mix of ingratiating melodies (always a Hillage hallmark) and a sense of social malaise on tracks like "These Uncharted Lands," "Anthems for the Blind," "Glory," and "Bright Future." It's a setting that keeps Hillage's talents too confined, especially for someone whose natural milieu is the unbounded aether of cosmic consciousness exemplified on albums like Motivation Radio and Green. There are moments, as on "Frame by Frame," that the old guitar magic reappears to create an interesting "discosmic" amalgam, which could be seen as a harbinger of System 7. But Steve Hillage simply doesn't have the voice or the necessary gimmickry to pull this sort of synth-driven music off here, falling slightly behind Pete Shelley and Tony Banks in the line of nice guys who lack the vocal chops to cash in on their own ideas. Perhaps recognizing its own lightweight status, the album was originally accompanied with a free instrumental LP, And Not Or; the two were combined on a single CD in subsequent reissues. ~ Dave Connolly, All Music Guide...full text |
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