Stave Hillage

2007 digitally remastered reissue of the classic album by Steve. The one time member of Gong and System 7, Steve Hillage released 7 studio and one live album in his tenure with Virgin Records from 1975 to 1982. He played an integral part in Gong's rise to prominence and after joining in 1972, he pursed other music interests outside the band. These 8 albums proved him to be as prolific as he was out-there. A string of top 40 albums including the top 10 album "L" cemented Hillage's place at the heart of the acid generation and to this day he is still making music be it as producer, re-mixer or artist.

2007 digitally remastered reissue of the classic album by Steve. The one time member of Gong and System 7, Steve Hillage released 7 studio and one live album in his tenure with Virgin Records from 1975 to 1982. He played an integral part in Gong's rise to prominence and after joining in 1972, he pursed other music interests outside the band. These 8 albums proved him to be as prolific as he was out-there. A string of top 40 albums including the top 10 album "L" cemented Hillage's place at the heart of the acid generation and to this day he is still making music be it as producer, re-mixer or artist. The digitally remastered album boasts a number of bonus tracks from the Hillage's personal tape archives. The booklet liner notes were penned by prog expert Mark Powell and include photos and memorabilia also from the Hillage archives.

Talk to any connoisseur of '70s-era double live albums, and many will agree that Steve Hillage's Live Herald, recorded and released in 1977-1978, rates among the finest jewels that the genre has to offer. So it's astonishing to discover that someone has spent the last 25 years sitting on tapes that knock that set into the dust, both in terms of on-stage excitement and aural enjoyment. Live at Deeply Vale Festival '78 transports the listener back to one of the last truly great festivals staged in the U.K. that decade, a weekend's worth of music that fearlessly ranged across both the traditional rock range and the upcoming punk movement, before climaxing with a Hillage set that the guitarist himself reflects, "[sounds] as exciting now as Live Herald was back then."

After a stint with Gong as their trippy, hippy, new agey guitar guru of cosmically and extremely raga-esque trance rock and improv heaven, Steve Hillage went solo. He branched out to carry his own version of the Gong gospel of personal freedom via his special blend of cosmic brotherhood, Eastern religion, new age, pyramids, ley lines, crystals, and some ferocious jazz fusion and progressive rock guitar blended with space rock synths. Hillage reinterprets some well-known tunes by other artists like Donovan and George Harrison here as well as penning some of his more memorable sonic treats. His awesome riffing and speedy solos on his Fender Strat rival those of Hendrix and Frank Marino but go further compositionally via exotic scales from other cultures…

A highly skilled guitarist known for his fluid, effects-heavy playing, British musician Steve Hillage has collaborated with countless musicians and influenced several genres over the course of his lengthy career, particularly space rock, prog, ambient, and techno. Initially associated with the Canterbury Scene during the late '60s and early '70s, Hillage played in groups such as Uriel and Khan before becoming a key member of psychedelic cult favorites Gong during the '70s.
1979 was an incredibly busy year for Steve Hillage - possibly too busy, what with three albums hitting the market in a brief span of time. Live Herald was a strong summation of his live performances, and Rainbow Dome Musick was a left turn into ambient music which, a decade later, would inspire Hillage and his constant partner Miquette Giraudy to get into the EDM scene as the ambient house act System 7…

70 minutes of guitar great Steve Hillage surfing 'the golden vibe' in 1973! Nine previously unreleased tracks of Hillage's 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.

Originally released in 1979, this album of Hillage's self-styled "elektric gypsy musick" was spread across two vinyl discs; when subsequently reissued during the digital era the guitarist/singer's cosmic space rock set - including a version of George Harrison's "It's All Too Much" - fit onto a single CD.
The album was recorded at the peak of Hillage's popularity (although peak might be too strong a word!) at a variety of gigs during 1977 and 1978, in and around the London (UK) area. The songs are primarily taken from Hillage's first album "Fish rising", "L" (which appears virtually in full) and "Motivation radio".