HIGHLIGHT 1- Mandala Stage- Saturday 11pm to 1am, Space Hawks Tribute to Nik Turner And Mick Slattery, Ex-Hawkwind- Featuring members and friends of Space Ritual’

 

A very special performance beckons....In honour of their nemesis, the late great Nik Turner, the Space Falcons and special friends have put together a one-off show to honour both Nik and also Mick Slattery, a founder member of Hawkwind, who sadly passed away in March. The Space Falcons played Nik's last professional gig with him at the Sonic Rock Solstice in July 2022. The band evolved from Nik's famous open jam sessions at the Mandala Stage, over the last 10 years, ably curated by Melissa Joseph among many others. Nik dedicated these jams to the memory of Arabella Churchill and Andrew Kerr who were the key founders of the Glastonbury Festival itself. Hawkwind played at the very first festival in 1971 and Glastonbury always felt like home for the whole Hawkwind family. Over the years, different people came to jam with Nik, young and old, some with strong connections with early Hawkwind. This was the genesis of the Space Falcons. Youth, the renowned producer and bassist Of Killing Joke takes up the story of how Nik's Glastonbury jams turned into an incredible album.

 

“It’s all about Nik for me,” raves Youth. “He’s the great time lord of space and cosmic psychedelia, one of the true 60s innovators and pioneers. I love his egalitarian passion for music. And let’s not forget that he’s in the tradition of the great British mystics, there’s a magical energy around him that’s very powerful. He’s a space warrior, a grand old wizard of the cosmos.”

 

It’s fair to say that Youth is enthused. The celebrated producer and Killing Joke bassist is talking up his latest collaboration with ex-Hawkwind magus, Nik Turner. Backed by The Space Falcons, Interstellar Energy sees the pair voyage deep into heliospheric space rock, fuelled by rhythmic kosmische and a keen sense of discovery. A thrilling ride it is too. Improvised riffs, drones and pulses push upwards and outwards, cooled by Turner’s pure, melodic sax lines.

This is the second time that Turner and Youth have made an album together. Informed by Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and Vangelis’ soundtrack to Blade Runner, 2018’s Pharaohs From Outer Space was a multi-layered ambient piece with bluesy sax. Interstellar Energy, by contrast, is heavier, gnarlier, more psychedelic.

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Turner recalls: “It all started with a live stage with everybody playing that wanted to, where anybody could join me. Then when Youth turned up it all really came together. It sounded so good, so we decided to go into the studio. I think the chemistry worked so well because everybody was listening to each other, giving each other room.”

Curiously Interstellar Energy is a product of reverse practice. Whereas most artists make a studio album, then attempt to replicate it live, Nik Turner, Youth and The Space Falcons – Welch, keyboardist Matt Smith, percussion player and second bassist Will Hughes, drummer Richard Lanchester and violinist Chris Barnett – spent time trying to recapture the magic of a stage performance in the studio.

 

Welch, who began as Hawkwind’s roadie before occasionally filling in on stage circa 1971/72, joins us on Zoom. “I steered a few of the riffs during the gig, because these pieces usually start somewhere around guitar,” he says. “Then I went back in the cold light of day and set the tracks out in frameworks, half a dozen of them, and sent them over to Youth to play around with. When we got in the studio we were able to flesh them out.” The ensemble repaired to The Kinks’ Konk Studios in north London for a couple of days. “We’d lay down these pretty spontaneous jams, then I’d edit them, doing subtle overdubs and things,” says Youth. “But there were a couple of takes that were pretty complete already. Those two Glastonbury jams were very much in a psychedelic, space rock, krautrock vein. In the early 70s I think the idea was that everybody would take acid, pick up their instruments and then start playing and seeing where it ended up. There was an element of that in terms of how we approached these tracks – there was no real structure, it was very loose.”

 

This philosophy is fully expressed on finale Slider, in which Turner’s sax orbits around a circular guitar figure, before pulling off into the stratosphere towards somewhere far more esoteric, and on Solar Probe, built around a nebulous Eastern drone and Fripp-ish soundwaves. Then there’s the 10-minute Space, with its vague echo of Shakin’ All Over eventually swarmed by clouds of racing psychedelia. “Youth put in that lovely techno beat in the middle and I’m just brought forward 50 years every time I hear it,” remarks Welch of the latter. “It’s like jumping on some sort of rocket. It’s essentially one take, with all its sort of Grateful Dead highs, lows and fades.”

 

So that's one story of how Nik's jams grew into so much more. The Space Falcons will be joined by the beautiful Angel Flame, who danced for many years with Nik's bands and was a true soulmate of his. Terry Ollis and Dave Anderson, original Hawks from 1971 who played on the legendary 'In Search of Space' album, have sent us huge blessings and will be with us in spirit, but are sadly not able to make it this year. Other special guests for this Nik Turner retrospective show, which has been thoughtfully curated by Falcons bassist Will Hughes, will be revealed on the night. Don't miss this amazing show and the amazing art and pix put together by Ben and Amy Ray at the Mandala Stage. Come and rock the night away with us, in loving memory of Nik and Mick.

 

(with big thanks to Prog magazine for the Youth/Nik interview excerpts)