Nik Turner, founding member of the British band Hawkwind (inventors of space rock) passed away in the evening of November 10th, 2022 at the age of 82. I met him myself twenty years ago at the 2002 edition of the Baja Prog Festival in Mexico. A friendly person at the time and willing to talk to everybody. During Hawkwind's most critically acclaimed and successful period, 1969-1976, he was a major creative force in the band. His costumes, improvised saxophone and flute playing, became an iconic representations of the band. He would go on to write some of their most popular songs. Songs such as Brainstorm and Master Of The Universe. After leaving the band, he released a diverse catalogue of solo albums. He collaborated with a wide range of artists in various genres. One of his latest collaborations was with The Trance Dimensional, a band founded in 2016 by Steve Hillman (Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Keyboards & Synths). Now he has released Synchronicit with them An album full of ideas and with a thousand facets, prog, space, psych it's all there! Two ex-Hawkwind players are also part of the game. Namely bassist Dave Anderson (named on the album as Clog, formerly Amon Düül II and Groundhogs) and singer Mr Dibs who joins us on the track Taken To The Limit. Right from the start when you hear the opening tune Destination Void, you are in the space realm of Hawkwind. Nick's voice and saxophone brings you back to the days when Hawkwind ruled the waves of spacerock. Every fan of the band will love it right away. On The Enchantress, which is next on the track list, you can enjoy the narrated voice of Angel Flame. She was the dancer in Nik's Space Ritual and the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. The song is a rather mellow tune with nice flute parts and a short synth solo. More up tempo on the following piece Taken To The Limit. Here it is Mr. Dibs on vocals, as was mentioned on the intro. Hawkwind again all the way through your speakers. Nice guitar and keyboard parts mainly dominate this track. The pace gets slower again on the instrumental Cloudlands. This has beautiful keyboard parts played on the Mellotron (or is it Nik on his flute?). This is a real progressive rock tune if I may say so! Thunder, blowing winds and falling rain introduces Thunder Rider Invocation. Nik's voice does some narrative talking before the song moves into some Eastern musical influences. The pace is again rather slow. Here the Mellotron has a leading role again. A kind of Church organ sound makes the song even more progressive rock orientated sounding. The instrumental Sphinx Dancer is more up tempo and more danceable in an Eastern way. You can see the Egyptian dancers move around the pyramids if you have a strong imagination. Again Turner introduces the next composition Sekhmet. His Egyptian travels seems to be the inspiration for this mellow short piece of music. The song purposefully harkens back to Nik's Egyptian themed album from 1978 called Xitintoday. Angels Of The Light is next, and now the tempo is more upbeat and more danceable. Nik now does here the lead vocals and some great playing on the saxophone. It's again a typical Hawkwind sounding piece with a strong instrumental ending. Some fine keyboard and guitar playing makes it a true progressive rock ending. Night Of The Jeweled Eye is again more up tempo. It's a nice tune with elements of pop integrated into the space rock sound of Hawkwind. Keyboards, guitars and sax mostly dominate this track. Abode Of The Blessed is also more upbeat and has nice instrumental parts performed on the synthesizers. Its good song on which you can again hear the narrative voice of Angel Flame. Children Of The Sun ends the album in a rather mellow style. It is a new arrangement of this Dave Anderson and Nik Turner composition that first appeared on the Hawkwind album In Search Of Space on which Anderson originally played the bass guitar in 1971. For me Synchronicity made by Nik Turner & The Trance Dimensionals is a wonderful farewell album of a musical legend which I enjoy tremendously. May his spirit wander through the space galaxy and his music live forever on our Earth! R.I.P. Nik. I am glad I met you twenty years ago! **** Henri Strik Where to buy? |
