Steve Hillage: The Hippie From Outer Space

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Steve Hillage is without a doubt a music legend, and his guitar playing is pretty unique! He was born Stephen Simpson Hillage on August 2, 1951 in Chingford, London, England. He once was a member of Uriel, Arzachel and not at least the very interesting band Khan and the seminal space fusion band Gong. Hillage`s first solo album came 34 years ago soon after he left Gong, and the album was entitled Fish Rising. After Fish Rising Hillage was very active made a series of studio album. For me the album L from 1976 stands out as the best of many very god releases, but many would prefer the mentioned Fish Rising.

Steve Hillage is often referred to as the Hippie From Outer Space. He has a huge impact of space rock and is definitely one of the main inventors of the genre. Later space prog band as Ozric Tentacles and early Porcupine Tree is inspired of Hillage music end his guitar playing.

Recently nine previously unreleased tracks of Hillage’s was discovered. This was recordings during an echo guitar jam session sit alongside 5 tracks from the same session taken from the Searching For The Spark box set. The recordings are part of a series of archived tapes liberated from storage by Hillage. This tape was labelled Wata Trip! 1973. It was recorded when Hillage was living in the Gong communal house in Sens, France with Miquette Giraudy, as the band began to develop the music that would form the core of Gong’s Angel’s Egg. The new recording is entitled The Golden Vibe.

The tape contained 3 hours and 12 minutes of engaging sonic wonderment, full of gorgeous crackle and hum, utilizing tape echo, fuzz and sometimes also Wem copycat with every single note, guitar body bang, buzz, harmonic and bit of audio echoing into infinity and beyond. It seemed to encapsulate a vibrant moment in Steve’s life and was like an organic, fully formed, almost naturally occurring psychedelic ambient album.

These selected recordings represent a bubbling, rich cauldron of motifs, sounds and themes within which can be recognized younger forms, glittering shards and even complete deep elements of future songs, some still years from conception. These are the preparatory sketches and water colors, an appreciation of which can only enhance one’s enjoyment of the completed work, and which even have a nice coherent integrity of their own.

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