Psychedelic, heavy, prog and more innovating sounds spanning the late 60s and the early 70s – Dan’s pick of the week: Hawkwind (Space Ritual), Renaissance (Ashes Are Burning), Yes (Fragile), Genesis (Trespass), Pink Floyd (A Saucerful of Secrets) & The Beatles (Abbey Road).
Hawkwind is a British space rock band, founded in 1969 by street musicians Dave Brock and Nik Turner as Group X, shortly afterwards changed to Hawkwind Zoo and then to Hawkwind. The group has undergone numerous line-up changes over the years. Space Ritual is a live double album from 1973, recorded in 1972 by the British rock band Hawkwind. It is their fourth album since their debut, Hawkwind, in 1970.
Henri Strik Background Magazine: “Financed by their lucky hit single Silver Machine, Hawkwind’s Space Ritual tour roared over Great Britain and the USA in all its psychedelic glory. In those days the shows were attempted to create a full audio-visual experience. These performances featured several dancers like the famous Stacia, and created a very intensive and dark voyage through space and time. Many of the songs on Space Ritual are much more powerful than the studio recordings. You could say that the improvisational nature of their music wasn’t caught properly in the organized manner of studio recordings. Then again, giving concerts was also risky regarding that seven musicians were on stage with unreliable electronic instruments. Moreover, the musicians on stage had some habits that could harm their playing abilities…
(…) Hawkwind surprised friend and foe with their lavish extravaganza of lights, the use of electronics, Stacia’s exotic dancing, sci-fi poetry and fantasy tales with charmingly goofy lyrics. Just take a title as Orgone Accumulator or lines such as ‘it’s no social integrator, it’s a one-man isolator’ or ‘turns eyeballs into craters’ and you know what I mean. No ordinary stuff, at least not in the early seventies.
At the time Space Ritual was a musical highlight for hippies and other people who were into space rock and other weird music. From all the ive albums Hawkwind recorded throughout their career, this double live album has always remained the favourite live record among their fans. For many space rock fans this is a classic live album comparable to Made In Japan (Deep Purple) for hard rock devotees and Yessongs (Yes) for prog heads!”
Wednesday, 21 January 2026 12:00 noon CET Brussels – 11 a.m. GMT London. Repeated: 16:00 & 20:00 hrs CET Brussels, 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. GMT London
Ends: 12 midnight CET Brussels, 11 p.m. GMT London.
