HW: Not of this Earth 3-CD

[Henderson Keith]

Hi Folks...

I just picked up this box-set thingy that had been long in the works from
the Black Widow folx in Italy.  This is the followup to the Horror Film
tribute compilation they did several years ago (which I've never
heard...what/who is on that one anyway?), and it's of course the "Sci-fi
Movies Tribute" package, although there's some tributing done to TV here and
there also (Dr. Who, Star Drek, and esp. the Prisoner).  In fact, there's a
lot of stuff related to the Prisoner here.

The package includes three CDs (nicely decorated - Disc 1 art is from
Astounding (so it looks like ASAM, duh), Disc 2 is Robby the Robot, and Disc
3 is McGoohan (No. 6).  Each is about 70 minutes long, so the whole package
is about 3 1/2 hours.  There is one track per band, a who's who list of
worldly space and prog rock acts, maybe 40 tracks in all?  Each one is
attributed to a particular work of Sci-Fi TV/Movie-making, all the important
stuff with only a few notable absences.  However, some of the tracks are
only tangentially related to the work listed (from my limited perspective),
whereas some artists actually wrote new music/lyrics especially intended to
'tributize' the work they were challenged to do.  Adrian Shaw for instance,
wrote a nice song about the Bruce Dern movie "Silent Running."

Hawkwind's contribution is a new (or I should say 'yet again different')
version of Sonic Attack, entitled "This is Hawkwind Sonic Attack" the lyrics
of which seem unchanged.  The lineup is given as Brock/Davey/Tree/Chadwick,
so this is from a few years ago (and would seemingly match up with when this
project was started).  The vocals are a dead ringer for Calvert, but I guess
it's really Ron doing an amazing likeness, or else Dave uncovered an old
track of Calvert's from the distant past.  I dunno...I've only given the
thing a quick cursory listen.  The music seemed totally different than any
other version...no real bass guitar I don't think, but kinda trancey
synths/percussion along with some guitar playing from Dave.  Not sure what
Alan was doing...wave sequencer stuff perhaps, whatever that is.  It's 7
minutes long, and I think it's just fine though not superior to actually
hearing something that's not already 30 years old in part.  Interestingly,
it's associated with "When Worlds Collide" but I really don't know how -
they have a writeup about said SF story, but nothing about how it connects
to Moorcock's words.  Or if it even does.  The writing credits go to
Moorcock, Calvert, Brock, Chadwick...not sure when/why Calvert was ever
awarded writing credit here, but you know how these things have continually
evolved over the years!

The other Hawkwind-related tracks are: the Adrian Shaw solo piece (nice gtr
playing, the only downside being synth-drums), Alan's solo piece (for
Forbidden Planet)...synthy stuff (not heavy), Dark Sun with NikT doing
"Abduction Files" (live, a track from their studio disc IIRC; nice version,
and Nik even seemed to have rehearsed a minute or two), Pete Pavli doing
something for "Day of the Triffids" (synthy stuff with violin playing to
boot).  Well, and then there are tracks by F&R, like the Quimby's doing
"Quatermass & the Pit," Dr. Hasbeen doing "Apollo 13," and both PXR1 (who
you'll remember from the Hawk & Elf CD) doing "Day the Earth Stood Still"
and Krel (solo Martin M.) doing "2001."  The Prisoner theme is redone by
Gary Ramon/SunDial (and there's a hidden bonus track on Disc 3 that seems
like him/them again doing it again slightly differently?), and Dr. Who theme
is redone by a Finnish band called "Reverend Bizarre."  The Star Trek piece
(by Italy's Deviate Damaen) is the only thing I heard on here that is awful!
Watered-down techno/sampling piece that seemingly took about a half-hour to
churn out.

Other luminaries such as ArcMet, Quarkspace, ST 37, Moon Fog Prophet,
Standarte, Fantasyy Factoryy, Mooseheart Faith (nice), Paul Chain (synthy
with some gtr...different/weird), Eternal Elysium (good Japanese stoner
band...nice job! "Godzilla" of course, but *not* the same as the BOC track
of course), Nekropolis (aka Peter Frohmander), and Braindance (remember them
from the NYC 1995 HW gig?) all contribute works too.  Braindance actually
represented here by just the synth player (I guess maybe it's Vora Vor?),
and actually is pretty decent.  There a bunch more Italian bands here (not
surprisingly), some of whom I've never heard of before.  Helden Rule's track
is really nice...ambient-like and well done.  The Farflung/Pressurehed wing
is (oddly) not represented here anywhere, but a trio based in Kassel,
Germany called "Fulvio Tori's Madre del Vizio" (one Italian guy and two
Germans I guess) offer a track that sounds very much like P-hed's trademark
'gtr-techno' sound, so that style is covered.  Disc Two is the one that is
really avant-garde...some Italian prog-rockers here, like Universal Totem
Orchestra and Presence (both w/ bad singing IMHO).  Sethian, from Finland,
is another cool stoner-like band that I've never heard of
previously...familiar to anyone here?

The package is nicely done....fold-out double-height wallet-thing.  There's
a CD-sized booklet of information about the bands/tracks/movies that's
sealed into the place where the 4th digipak tray *would* have been had there
been four discs.  And then there's a bigger booklet sealed into the center
spine (so it's "double-height" also) that has articles, art reproductions
and a whole Prisoner guide section, everything in both Italian and English.
It looks nice too, but haven't had time to read any of it.  From the other
text bits, the usual heap of misspellings and other typos are rampant (what
else is new?), and I wonder how well the translation is done in the writings
themselves.  They spent several years on this, you'd think they could get
most of it edited properly, but hey...

My initial impression is that it's uniformly 'good' and really everyone
should have one, but I only heard a few things that made me suddenly get
excited.  In any case, I suspect it's a lot better than if Cleopatra had run
the thing, although that would have had six or seven tracks by the
Farflung/P-hed contingent.  :)  And Alien Planetscapes too, another obvious
omission here.  I would have preferred to have the booklets be loose and
more easily perusable without having to deal with the whole package at once,
but anyway...

Be seeing you...Grakkl (FAA)