Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - Hall of the Mountain Grill

HAWKWIND - HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL Moving forward from the ‘Space Ritual’ era

Exhaustive box set dedicated to the album which moved forward from the ‘Space Ritual’ era

Issued in September 1974, Hall of the Mountain Grill was Hawkwind’s fifth LP. The follow-up to 1973’s live double album The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London, it found the band in a position which seemed unlikely considering their roots in, and continued commitment to, West London’s freak scene. Their June 1972 single “Silver Machine” had charted and, irrespective of what they represented or espoused, Hawkwind had breached the mainstream.

The Mastermind review - another slim but nourishing slice of Americana from Kelly Reichardt

Josh O'Connor is perfect casting as a cocky middle-class American adrift in the 1970s

The clatter of cool jazz on the soundtrack announces writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s latest project, the kind of score that back in the day would have announced a film by a maverick new talent. The film, her ninth, has been given a faded and vintage look, tricked out in shades of greige and tan that you see in ageing photos of the 1970s, as if it too was shot then.

Music Reissues Weekly: Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM

CHISWICK RECORDS 1975-1982 - SEVEN YEARS AT 45 RPM The British independent label at 50

Triple-album 50th-anniversary celebration of the mould-breaking British independent label

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM is a triple album marking the 50th anniversary of the first release on the titular label. That record was a four-track, seven-inch EP by the rough, Rolling Stones-ish pub rockers The Count Bishops. It came out in November 1975.

Album: Wolf Alice - Clearing

★★★★ WOLF ALICE - CLEARING Wolf Alice once again make magic from the familiar 

Ten years from their debut, Wolf Alice once again make magic from the familiar

Wolf Alice are a band who consistently over-deliver. Their presentation is so staid, their cited influences so safe (The Beatles! Blur!), their politics so “bad things are bad, m’kay?”, that they give every impression they’re going to be bland and generic.

Music Reissues Weekly: Chip Shop Pop - The Sound of Denmark Street 1970-1975

CHIP SHOP POP - THE SOUND OF DENMARK STREET 1970-1975 Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies

Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies

One of the more interesting tracks on Paul Weller’s fascinating new cover versions album Find El Dorado is his interpretation of “When You Are a King,” originally a 1971 hit for White Plains, an ensemble which evolved from the touring version of “Let’s go to San Francisco” hitmakers Flowerpot Men. White Plains, it turns out, are represented on another new release.

Album: Paul Weller - Find El Dorado

Inspiring curation of some pretty great covers, and hints of majesty

Paul Weller occupies a strange place in the cultural sphere. Especially since he was adopted as an elder statesman of Britpop in the mid 1990s, he’s been particularly beloved of a core audience whose tastes are extremely conservative. So much so, in fact, that middle-aged men who ape his classic mod haircuts are now a shorthand for meat-and-potatoes, Brexity, red-faced, pub-coke bloke-rock. Yet Weller himself is anything but conservative.

Music Reissues Weekly: Beggars Arkive - Gary Numan's 1979 John Peel session

BEGGAR'S ARKIVE Gary Numan's 1979 John Peel session

Saying goodbye to Tubeway Army

Tubeway Army’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” hit the top of the UK single’s chart in the last week of June 1979. It stayed there for four weeks. Its parent album, Replicas, lodged itself in the Top 75 for 31 weeks. In April, just as Replicas was out, Tubeway Army began recording demos for the next album: the band which had been assembled for the task debuted on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test on 22 May.

Music Reissues Weekly: Motörhead - The Manticore Tapes

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY: MOTORHEAD - THE MANTICORE TAPES Snapshot of Lemmy and co in August 1976 proves fascinating

Snapshot of Lemmy and co in August 1976 proves fascinating

Manticore was owned by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and their manager. The organisation provided the name for the band’s label. Apart from ELP and its individual members, the best-known signees to the imprint were Italian prog-rockers PFM and former King Crimson member Pete Sinfield. Despite this new album’s title, Motörhead were not with Manticore.

Album: Mocky - Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1)

Is the Canadian polymath hiding behind his exquisite production and arrangement skill?

Dominic “Mocky” Salole has had a long career in which the tension between authenticity and pastiche has been a constant. Toronto-born, of English and Yemeni heritage, he came of musical age in the Bohemian hotbed of 1990s Berlin with a close-knit bunch of other Canadian ex-pats, including Peaches, Chilly Gonzales and Feist.