Hawkwind - Space Ritual
(United Artists UAD 6037-8)
Released 1973, United Artists Label, manufactured in UK
Double Album, 3x2 Panel Foldout Sleeve (6 outer panels and 6 inner panels)
 
Track Listing
Side 1
Track 1: Earth Calling - 1:44
Track 2: Born To Go - 9:56
Track 3: Down Through The Night - 6:16
Track 4: The Awakening - 1:32
Side 2
Track 5: Lord Of Light - 7:21
Track 6: Black Corridor - 1:51
Track 7:  Space Is Deep - 8:13
Track 8: Electronic No. 1 - 2:26
Side 3
Track 9: Orgone Accumulator - 9:59
Track 10: Upside Down - 2:43
Track 11: 10 Seconds Of Forever - 2:05
Track 12: Brainstorm - 9:20
Side 4
Track 13: Seven By Seven - 6:11
Track 14: Sonic Attack - 2:54
Track 15: Time We Left This World Today - 5:47
Track 16: Master Of The Universe - 7:37
Track 17: Welcome To The Future - 2:04
 
Description
The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London is a 1973 live double album recorded in 1972 by UK rock band Hawkwind. It is their fourth album, reached #9 in the UK album charts and briefly dented the Billboard Top 200, peaking at #179.
The album was recorded during the tour to promote their Doremi Fasol Latido album, which comprises the bulk of this set. In addition, there are new tracks ("Born To Go", "Upside Down" and "Orgone Accumulator") and the songs are interspersed by electronic and spoken pieces making this one continuous performance. Their recent hit single "Silver Machine" was excluded from the set, and only "Master of the Universe" remains from their first two albums.
The Space Ritual show attempted to create a full audio-visual experience, representing themes developed by Barney Bubbles and Robert Calvert entwining the fantasy of Starfarers in suspended animation traveling through time and space with the concept of the music of the spheres. The performance featured dancers Stacia, Miss Renee, Jonathan Carney (later of the V8 Intercepters) and Tony Carrera, stage set by Bubbles, lightshow by Liquid Len and poetry recitations by Calvert. On entering the venue, audience members were given a programme (reproduced on the 1996 remaster CD) featuring a short sci-fi story by Bubbles setting the band in a Starfarers scenario returning to Earth.
The original release featured edits and overdubs, the sleeve notes explaining that "We had to cut a piece out of Brainstorm and Time We Left because they were too long", but the 1985 Space Ritual Volume 2 album contains the full unedited versions. A previously unheard edited version of "You Shouldn't Do That" (segued with an unlisted "Seeing It As You Really Are") from this concert was included on the 1976 Roadhawks compilation album, then subsequently included as a bonus track on the 1996 remaster CD. The full unedited version of the track can be found on the Hawkwind Anthology album. June 2007 saw another EMI 2CD remaster issue with different bonus tracks and DVD-audio - this remaster would be reissued in 2013, minus the DVD-audio.
"Sonic Attack" had been written by science fiction author Michael Moorcock, who often performed with the band when convenient and Calvert was unavailable. Here it is recited by Calvert and it was scheduled for single release, promotional copies being distributed in a cloth sleeve, but it never did receive a full release.
In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came #8 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
The sleeve was designed by Barney Bubbles and came in 3x2 panel foldout, the outer 6 panels being colour, the inner 6 panels being monochrome, the discs in psychedelic patterned orange & yellow inner sleeves were folded into this. It made Q Magazine's 100 greatest album covers list.
The outer foldout features an illustration of Miss Stacia flanked by the hounds of King over stage shots of the band.
The inner foldout features three panels of a photograph of outer space with three illustrations on each panel headed by lines from a Hawkwind song.
Inner panel 1: features a vintage photograph of a naked woman with listed credits.
Inner panel 2: chac bacab – features an image of a female nipple as a planet, and a legend of the Earth as a living entity.
Inner panel 3: kan bacab – features an image of a foetus suspended in space with the legend "The Universe resounds with the joyful cry I AM. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Naked I came out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither."
Inner panel 4: Features a mandala with the legend "Everything exists for itself, yet everything is part of something else. The One and the many contain in themselves the principles of time and space. The way up and the way down are one and the same."
Inner panel 5: Features a dedication from Lemmy to John the Bog, Supernova and Sue Bennett. zac bacab, tec bacab and bac bacab expounds upon religious and cosmological myths and sciences, starting with the William Blake poem "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour", ending with the Alfred Whitehead quote "Give up illusions about ideas of order, accept nothing of inherited norm. Spread joy and revolution. It is the business of the future to be dangerous."
Inner panel 6: features a winged superhero grasping an electrical cable and lightning bolts, perched upon an Earth situated in a void.
 
(information sourced from wikipedia)
Internet Location
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ritual