Celebrating
its 50th anniversary today is the third studio LP from space rock
icons, Hawkwind, with Doremi Fasol Latido being released on November
24th, 1972. With the group experiencing one of its many lineup shuffles
it would go through over the years, some changes in sound were afoot
along with the new faces.
This album ushered in future Motorhead
bassist, Lemmy Kilmister, along with new drummer Simon King. In the
case of the latter, he was replacing Terry Ollis, who was more into a
flowing jazz oriented drumming style while King was prone to a straight
up thrusting rock approach. As for Lemmy, he original thought he was
joining the band as a lead guitarist to replace Huw Lloyd-Langton, but
Dave Brock had decided to take on the lead guitar bits and wanted Lemmy
to play bass. Lemmy had no experience with the instrument and only
really considered himself a barely competent guitarist who covered his
lack of technique with volume and stagecraft. Nonetheless, Brock tossed
him into the deep end and demanded he swim. The results were
immediately successful with the Silver Machine single released on the
previous album. Ultimately, the new rhythm section certainly gave the
band a more driving proto-punk thrash that veered into Germanic
"motorik" territory in some cases.
The album was recorded at
the then newly opened Rockfield Studios, which proved to be somewhat
detrimental to the overall sound. The facilities were in their infancy,
so all the bugs weren’t quite worked out and things were a bit spartan
in terms of the setup. The end result for the album was a sound that
was often lacking depth and bottom end. The band tended to record with
the core of bass, guitar, drums and vocals live in the studio, recording
great long sessions and then going back to the tapes to hack and slash
things together in the editing, using bits of synth to bridge sections
along with additional overdubs of synths, sax/flute and effects.
Thematically,
the group were continuing their exploration of some pretty heady
themes, delving into concepts derived from hard science fiction sources.
Michael Moorcock’s poem, The Black Corridor, became the basis for the
lyrics in Space Is Deep. The Pythagorean concept of sound was an
integral inspiration for the idea of the star-ship and “space ritual”.
The title of the album is a reference to the “Sound of the Spheres”
where the distance between Earth and the fixed "stars" represents the
perfect harmonic interval. These spheres were believed to create a
specific tone based on their vibrations as they moved through their
orbits and displaced the “ether”. This is expressed thusly…
Do – Mars – red
Re – Sun – orange
Mi – Mercury – yellow
Fa – Saturn – green
Sol – Jupiter – blue
La – Venus – Indigo
Ti – Moon – violet
The
cover for the original LP was silver foil printed with black in the
form of a shield or crest, which became the principal symbol for the
band going forward, being used on numerous future albums and singles.
The back cover, inner sleeve and poster depict barbarian-type warriors
in futuristic settings. The back cover includes the legend:
“The Saga of Doremi Fasol Latido is a collection of ritualistic space
chants, battle hymns and stellar songs of praise as used by the family
clan of Hawkwind on their epic journey to the fabled land of Thorasin.”
The
legend tells of the Hawklords last and defeated stand against the
"tyranny of the corrupt forces for law and evil", but the inner sleeve
has redemption in the legend:
“And in the fullness of time,
the prophecy must be fulfilled and the Hawklords shall return to smite
the land. And the dark forces shall be scourged, the cities razed and
made into parks. Peace shall come to everyone. For is it not written
that the sword is key to Heaven and Hell?”
Upon its release, the
album was well received by critics and peaked at #14 on the UK album
charts. The raw edginess of its rhythm section would prove to be
inspiration in a few years time for the burgeoning punk scene in the UK,
with groups like the Sex Pistols eventually acknowledging Hawkwind as
an influence. Though it may suffer slightly from weak production
values, its songs and freaked out conceptual landscapes make it one of
the band’s most essential albums.
