Brew Your Own 1999 Vol. 05 05 May

Attempting to make sense of Hawkwind's early-'80s output has never been easy. Between 1980 and 1984, the band itself released just four new studio albums, but behind them, the floodgates strained beneath the weight of a career's worth of live and studio outtakes and off-cuts, many of which did, in fact, date from the first years of this new decade. Among these, the albums Zones and This Is Hawkwind, Do Not Panic are the best representatives of the 1980 and 1984 eras; The Collectors Series, Vol. 2: Choose Your Masques arrived to slip in between them, with a seamless recounting of the group's fall 1982 U.K. tour - and at the same time, render any other document of the same period redundant. (The Friends and Relations and Independent Days collections both include overlapping material)…

Originally released around the turn of the millennium, Musick to Play in the Dark featured a restarted Coil at bay, with original members John (later Jhonn) Balance (R.I.P.) and Peter Christopherson joined by synthesist/bassist Thighpaulsandra, and Drew McDowall (replaced by Rose McDowall on the second volume). These are long-form works, collections of mood pieces in several modes, and what’s interesting (and somewhat predictable) is that the patience displayed while shifting in between these modes creates a tension and space that feels… almost removed from music by a step, as if the performance decided to slowly back away from Coil at a respectful, totality-fearing distance (or maybe it was the psychic force of their music that pushed it all back)…

Nightsessions (1998). Three tracks lasting over sixty six minutes in total, more vintage kit on the cover, analogue sounds, mellotron for fans of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. ‘Apocalypsis ll’ and most of this CD in fact is very much Tangerine Dream in ‘Encore’ and ‘Sorcerer’ mode. Spooky atmospherics and strange alien animal noises lurch from the speakers. Calm descends and electricity arcs across the atmosphere to be joined by sonic booms then a beefy sequence jerks into life. The lead lines could have been taken from ‘Encore’, ‘Force Majeure’ or even ‘Romance 76’ by Peter Baumann. After about ten minutes there is a welcome return to the spookyness so that we can get our breath back though the heart keeps pounding…

Carl Jackson, an accomplished bluegrass instrumentalist and songwriter, was born September 18, 1953, in Louisville, MS. While playing in his father's bluegrass band at the age of 14, he was approached by Jim & Jesse to join their backing group, the Virginia Boys. He accepted and spent most of his teenage years playing banjo for Jim & Jesse and other groups at the Grand Ole Opry…