HW: NIK: Nik's Sphynx album

[Doug Pearson]

On Fri, 19 Nov 1999 22:15:52 +0000, Dave Berry <daveb at TARDIS.ED.AC.UK> wrote:
>At 01:09 19/11/99 , flossbac wrote:
>>Wow Doug, it's crazy how opinions vary, because I've always thought the
>>Sphynx CD (Cleopatra version) was WAY better than Prophets of Time.

That's one of the things I love most about boc-l is being able to share
opinions that we strongly disagree on - at least we can all agree on being
Hawkwind fans, and that's about it!  I may be biased in favor of 'Prophets
of Time' since I like those Inner City Unit songs so much (although the
only one that betters the original IMO is "Stonehenge Who Knows", purely
for Simon House's violin soloing).  But 'Prophets' sounds like a much more
coherent effort to me, like something approaching a "real" band.  Too much
of 'Sphynx' sounds to me like musicians screwing around in the studio
without much focus.  I can do that anytime I want and make my own noise,
dammit :^).  And Nik's vocals sound "phoned-in" (which they essentially
were, actually) on both albums, although more so (IMO, of course) on
'Sphynx'.  Of course, if you can't stand 'Prophets' because of the voice of
Genesis P. Orridge being all over it, I certainly won't disagree with you
on THAT :^).

>I'm with John on this.  I found most of Prophets of Time very
disappointing.   Past or
>Future was better, but still wasn't great.  Sphynx beats both of them,
IMO, especially
>"Thoth".

I agree that "Thoth" is the best track on 'Sphynx' (except see below), but
I think the full-band version on 'Space Ritual 94' utterly blows it away.
I guess I'm a bit surprised that you don't like the live albums as much.  I
think that's where the Nik/Pressurehed band really shines, for a number of
reasons: 1) Nik has an audience to perform for, which brings out the
consummte entertainer in him, 2) songs don't sound like everyone is playing
along with a click track (the same complaint someone was recently making
about HW songs like "Blue Skin" and "Space is Their Palestine"), 2.5) real
drums, 3) crunchier guitars (but like I said before, I'm a big Helios
Creed/Chrome fan, and IMO he added his own character to the SR94 band's in
a very positive way - no one else sounds like him on guitar), 4) Del
Dettmar, still one of the best synth players alive after all these years.
Then again, there are probably just as many good reasons why I'm wrong :^).

>There's also the 1976 release of Sphynx (or rather "Xitintoday", by
Sphynx), but
>that's a different pyramid of mysteries.

With Steve Hillage, Tim Blake & Mike Howlett among others, so it winds up
sounding like loose jams done by the Radio Gnome-era Gong lineup.  I really
like that album (doesn't hurt that I'm a Gong fan), and I also love the
fact that Nik basically did a musical 180 over the next two years before
his next release (from the prog-influenced 'Xitintoday' to Inner City
Unit's punkish 'Passout').

>One of the nice things about the Cleopatra
>release, for those of us that have the 1976 version, is that the Cleopatra
release
>includes the original flute recordings from the Great Pyramid.

I like that part a lot, and I'm glad they included it as a bonus track.
Definitely my favorite part of the Cleopatra 'Sphynx' album.

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com