Viva Hillage!

by Chris Jones11 January 2007
Something of a musical polymath, the name of Steve Hillage will, to anyone under the age of 35, probably signify a world music producer (Rachid Taha) and ambient techno guru (System 7, The Orb etc.). It’s only recently, with the timely acceptance of anything labelled ‘prog’ that we’ve been able to focus on what he became famous for in the first place: as a guitar hero (or ‘guitar zero’ as he would have it). The reissue of his first four albums should finally seal his reputation on that score.
An original alumni of the second generation of ‘Canterbury’ bands (with Khan), Hillage came to prominence as psychedelic axe icon with Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen’s Gong (interestingly both ex-Soft Machiners). It was during Gong’s immediate post-Allen period that he took his own material (along with most of his bandmates past and present) and produced Fish Rising. Taking Allen’s glissando technique and sprucing it up with his Hendrix-meets-Ravi Shankar stylings, Fish…, featuring both Dave Stewart (Khan and Hatfield And The North) and Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow) sits neatly on the cusp of Canterbury jazz and far-out pot head pixie rock. Its bubbly suites remain wonderfully warm and floaty.
Success led Hillage to go fully solo (with partner Miquette Giraudy) and to go Stateside to meld his spiritual whimsies with those of another mystical maverick, Todd Rundgren. L must have looked like a perfect pairing on paper but was, perhaps, spoilt by Rundgren using his own band, Utopia for the sessions. Todd’s dense productions sound a little too cluttered for Hillage’s airy tones and no amount of remastering can stop the drums sounding like cardboard. Yet his “Lunar Musick Suite” has a cosmic grandeur while genius adoptions of songs by Donovan and George Harrison (“Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “It’s All Too Much”) meant that they became stage favourites for years to come.
Hillage returned the studio the following year with the aid of Tonto’s Expanding Headband’s synth maestro Malcolm Cecil and a stripped-down, funkier rhythm section of Joe Blocker and Reggie McBride. Motivation Radio’s lyrics were, by now, dripping with talk of UFOs and crystal vibrations while his grooves were approaching those of Cecil’s former boss, Stevie Wonder. Fans of Channel 4’s Friday Night Project (if there are such creatures) may recognize “Light In The Sky” as its theme tune. The guitar was as stratospheric as ever.
The first signs of Hillage’s desire to break out of guitar god mode followed in 1979 with his proto-ambient masterpiece Rainbow Dome Musik. Cited as an influence on the Orb, this two-track gem, with its temple bells, running water and arpeggiating sequencers still relaxes the parts that most ‘new age’ music can’t reach. It was proof positive that he had much more to offer. Long may he glid.