Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - X In Search Of Space, Doremi Fasol Latido

One of last year’s major joys was the box set version of Hawkwind's Space Ritual, an 11-disc extravaganza which made the great live album, originally issued in May 1973, even more great. Now the two studio albums which preceded it – X In Search Of Space and Doremi Fasol Latido – have become similarly packaged, though less colossal, box sets.

X In Search Of Space – also known as (X) In Search Of Space – was released in October 1971. Hawkwind’s second album, it came out when the band were still an underground attraction, a band lacking traction with the mainstream music scene. They were popular (X In Search Of Space had advance orders for 22,000 copies), but mainly of interest to freaks, heads and those looking for an alternative to the increasingly abstruse world of prog rock and the off-the-shelf nature of straightforward rock.

The non-album “Silver Machine” single changed this status. A hit in summer 1972, it reached number 3 on the charts. Doremi Fasol Latido was the album which followed the hit. Out in November 1972, it was released as what was dubbed the Space Ritual tour was on-going. Fans at early dates would not have heard the album featuring songs they were being exposed to live for the first time. The tour was recorded, and the double album The Space Ritual Alive In London And Liverpool was issued in May 1973.

Scoring a hit single which increased their profile wasn’t the only change in the Hawkwind cosmos between the release of X In Search Of Space and Doremi Fasol Latido. Line-up adjustments were on the menu. Bassist Dave Anderson and drummer Terry Olliss were heard on the earlier album. Anderson was replaced by Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister in August/September 1971, and Olliss was replaced by Simon King at the beginning of 1972. Anyone seeing Hawkwind live around the time X In Search Of Space landed in shops would have found Lemmy on stage rather than Anderson, who had played on the album.

As 1972 unfolded, Lemmy – a guitarist-turned-bassist who approached his newly adopted four-string instrument as though he was still a guitarist – and the super-powerful Anderson locked-in with each other. The band became increasingly driving and solid. Dynamic too. The apex of this gear shift was captured on the Space Ritual live set and, indeed, the tremendous live shows heard on last year’s attendant box set.

A year before the Space Ritual tour, X In Search Of Space documented a band in the process of amalgamating its softer, acoustic side with a burgeoning tendency towards repetition and spaciness. A fantastic album, it opened with the insistent, mantra-like, nagging “You Shouldn’t do That" and with closed with the brooding “Children of the Sun.” Psychedelia had been convincingly reconfigured for the early Seventies.

Doremi Fasol Latido, recorded with Anderson and Lemmy on board and fully integrated into Hawkwind, was even better. Although it finished in comedown mode with Lemmy’s melancholy “Lord of Light” it was the heavier, in terms of its attack rather than in the rock sense, of the two albums. It also balanced light and shade with more assurance than X In Search Of Space. Another long-playing triumph.

The elegant X In Search Of Space and Doremi Fasol Latido box sets are stuffed with the expected extras. Each is packaged as per the Space Ritual box: a slip case houses an illustrated floppy cover book with a long-form essay and lyrics (the Hawkwind Log Book, included with early copies of  X In Search Of Space, is fully reproduced in the relevant book), a fold-out wallet with the discs and a poster. Both sets have three CDs and two Blu-ray discs. In each case, the latter pair of discs includes new stereo mixes – also on the CDs – and new surround-sound mixes (the X In Search Of Space Blu-ray also sports the “Silver Machine” promo film, as seen on Top of the Pops in 1972).

Both albums sound stunning in their original form (on Disc One in each set), freshly mastered onto CD from the master tapes. The new stereo mixes open-out the sound without becoming either disconcertingly expansive or unlike a Seventies recording. Each new mix is immediate, revealing hitherto buried detail, confirming Hawkwind’s meticulousness in the studio. The new stereo Doremi Fasol Latido has the edge as far as impact goes. These fresh mixes have been created with utmost care.

Of the alternate versions, outtakes and non-album single tracks scooped up by each box, those with Doremi Fasol Latido are more interesting: the “Silver Machine” follow-up single “Urban Guerrilla”/“Brainbox Pollution,” a version of “Lord of Light” which became Germany only single, a studio remake of “Seven by Seven.” Album offcuts “Hog Farm" and "Kiss of the Velvet Whip," included with X In Search Of Space, are noteworthy but not essential. With both box sets, it is the stunning new versions of the albums which is the main focus: whether the new remasters, or the new stereo mixes.

Also heard on the Doremi Fasol Latido set is the full version – once again mixed anew – of the 13 February 1972 live Roundhouse show, parts of which ended up on the Greasy Truckers Party double album. It’s not as mind-boggling as the Space Ritual shows issued on the last year’s box, but it gets close and sounds better than ever. A further remixing coup. Hearing the Roundhouse show does, though, highlight a major eccentricity with these two box sets. The version of “Silver Machine” from the show became – after some studio work – the basis of what was heard on the hit single. Yet, the single – with Anderson and Lemmy – crops up on the X In Search Of Space box set (on which a new stereo mix of the single doesn’t quite work, as after the remix it lacks sonic coherence). “Silver Machine” should be on the Doremi Fasol Latido box, not the X In Search Of Space box.

There are a couple of other, more minor, niggles. Each box set’s book includes reproductions of press clippings from the period. None are captioned. It would have been good to know their dates and sources. Also, text from Stephen W Tayler, behind the sound of all of this, on his work with the multi-track tapes, the creation of new mixes and the remastering would have been fascinating. Even with these concerns, though not as astonishing as The Space Ritual Alive In London And Liverpool box set, these are essential, must-have new editions of X In Search Of Space and Doremi Fasol Latido, two of British rock’s most important albums.

• Next week: Looking back at 2024
  
• More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
• Kieron Tyler’s website

@kierontyler.bsky.social