Hawkwind - Dreamworkers Of Time (The BBC Recordings 1985-95)

Hawkwind
Dreamworkers Of Time
The BBC Recordings (1985-1995)
7.5/10
By Paul Davies

A decade's worth of live concerts and in session recordings by a legendary space-rock band for a venerable organisation sounds just like a musical marriage made somewhere in outer space. And it is! Time is suspended and revisited on this set to stun 3CD boxset that features all Hawkwind's live recordings for the Beeb during this time span. If this newly remastered edition, taken from the BBC's master tapes, isn't enough to whet the prog appetite of assiduous fans, then the additional sixteen previously unreleased tracks included will grab the attention of all hawk-eyed/eared fans.

Included in this marvellous mono-themed collection is the Friday Rock Show Live at Reading Festival 1986 show that trips through a ten-song setlist. It includes a rare outing for Assassins Of Allah plus new tracks The Pulsing Cavern and Needle Gun from the band's '85 studio album The Chronicle Of The Black Sword and Dream Worker from '82's Choose Your Masques release. Disc two jumps two years ahead to 1988 with, again, a ten-song set to fit the one-hour Radio 1 In Concert slot recorded at Hammersmith Odeon. Relying, in its original annotated radio format, on songs culled from that year's release The Xenon Codex, this remastering blows the accumulated space dust off this three decade-plus live recording adding a cleaner atmospheric ambience to this historical recording. These two caught in aspic wistful down the wind repolished recorded gems sit well together with both the 1985 Friday Rock Show and Mark Radcliffe's 1995 session recorded at the famed Maida Vale Studios. The former includes the song from which this collection is titled. The latter has Electric Tepee’s Right To Decide which remains a live favourite. The accompanying illustrated booklet is an engaging companion to these resurrected recordings.