Track Listing

1. Hurry On Sundown
2. Reason Is
3. Be Yourself
4. Paranoia
5. Paranoia (1)
6. Seeing It As You Really Are
7. Mirror Of Illusion
8. Bring It On Home
9. Hurry On Sundown (2)
10. Kiss Of The Velvet Whip
11. Cymbaline

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8225 in Music
• Released on: 2001-08-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

CD Description
Over the course of the 1970s, British freaks Hawkwind came to be known as the ultimate space-rock band, with trippy, science-fiction-themed songs full of far-out electronic effects. Their first album, though, released at the tail end of the hippie era, finds them still hanging onto vestiges of bothpsychedelia and even folk-rock. "Hurry on Sundown", an acoustic strumfest left over from leader Dave Brock's busking days, is as far as one can imagine from the Hawkwind that fanswould come to know. The rest of the record, extended improvisations built around simple, riff-based structures, sounds like a lysergically enhanced collision between Can and contemporaneous Pink Floyd. While all the electronic bells and whistles had yet to be firmly affixed to the Hawkwind spaceship, the mindset of these cosmic warriors was already very clearly focused on the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Customer Reviews

Hawkwind - self-titled (EMI)
Reason I'm giving this CD a five-star rating instead of a four-star one is because of the superb remastering job that EMI had done on this title, Hawkwind's very first album. Every track on this 1970 debut of theirs is simply awesome! From the trippy opener "Hurry On Sundown" to the rocker "Be Yourself", "Mirror Of Illusion", the pre-Hawkwind blues cover "Bring It on Home" and their stellar cover of Pink Floyd's "Cymbaline". So, here you get the lp's original seven cuts + four bonus tracks. Keep in mind that Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor produced this album. First rate psychedelic, space rock - or just great head music. You decide. Highly recommended.

Extremely psychedelic
When I was 14 a schoolfriend who had taken LSD played this album to me in the dark. Even though I had never tripped, after one listen to "Hawkwind" I knew the experience had something to do with paisley patterns! "Hurry On Sundown" and "Mirror Of Illusion" may be acoustic-guitar-based folk-rock, but they, along with the jam-based remainder of the album, have a haunting, timeless quality in their recording and production which reminds me of the classic tracks of Pink Floyd's "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" - although this band boasted jamming musicians to trump everyone in the early Floyd except Rick Wright. Hawkwind on this first album are not the pumping rock band we know from all their other recordings - they are mainly interested in psychedelic freakouts and do them very well. One of the essential roots records of the early 70's.

A competent debut album.
This isn't the easiest Hawkwind album to get into, and really not the place to start for the absolute novice to the Hawk's music. But Hurry On Sundown hooks you immediately on one play and is the standout track here; ditto with Mirror Of Illusion. The bonus tracks are actually all very good and really add to this album. So this is one to get once you listened to some of their later (and much better) material, and figured out what Hawkwind are all about; for the beginner, get Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Doremi Fasol Latido before this one.