Steve Swindells – Messages
Steve Swindells’ 1974 album Messages is as far removed from the grinding, out of this world spaciness of Hawkwind reincarnation The Hawklords – with whom he played keyboards – as it’s possible to get.
For the most part it’s a straightforward rock album that incorporates some of the flourishes associated with prog rock, retaining a steadily pleasant ambience right up until the final track ‘Messages from Heaven’, which beams us skyward into the more HFoS-friendly stratospheres of space-flavoured progressive rock and leaves all that went before it back on planet Earth, struggling for elevation.
The eight tracks prior to this magnificent 10 minute closer are a showcase for the singing, writing and keyboard skills of Steve Swindells, and as such have a certain amount in common with Elton John’s output of the same era. They do the job for those who appreciate the singer-songwriter genre of 70’s rock, which is a feat in itself considering the turbulent recording process detailed in the reissue’s liner notes. With a psychotic, drunk, drug-addled and predatory manager/producer behind the mixing desk, the project was very nearly doomed from the off, and it was these factors that contributed to the album’s lack of success and torpedoing by RCA of the follow-up album Swallows (included on Esoteric’s reissue as a bonus disc).
But it’s ‘Messages from Heaven’, the full-on prog track, that makes it all worthwhile. Recorded at George Martin’s Air Studio 1 it features the key ingredients of many a space-prog masterpiece. Ethereal vocals, distant imagery, drifting melodies, orchestral passages and unearthly, weird and wonderful incidental sounds. Maybe not as abrasive as some of future compadres Hawkwind’s voyages through the solar systems, ‘Messages from Heaven ‘ is still a fine interplanetary excursion away from the more standard fare on here.
Overall, don’t be put off by the cover, this is a harmless enough offering, made all the more worthwhile by its closing track.
Messages by Steve Swindells is reissued on CD for the very first time by Esoteric Recordings, and available from Amazon.co.uk
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