Hawkwind – Space Ritual

A small whinge about the two-CD version of the 50th Anniversary release. In the track “Ten Seconds of Forever”, I notice that the lines: “In the third second of forever / I thought of rain against a window, I thought of the wind...” is very indistinct. I have had several versions of Space Ritual* and, to a greater or lesser degree, the second line here has always been blurred. Stephen W. Tayler’s remastering of this album is excellent but I had hoped that he could have patched up this error as he had access to both the Liverpool and Sunderland concerts (strangely, the track does not appear in recordings of the Brixton concert).

*I have had two separate versions of Space Ritual on CD before this one and also had the first vinyl release. I cannot remember if the flaw was on the vinyl, but assume it was.

My copy is Auto-Coupled w/ the Side designations mislabeled. I felt like

evgen_rainbow Aug 28, 2023
I broke my brain...

Unfortunately mine came without the poster. while the album was in shrinkwrap
Anyone else missing it?

The original Space Ritual album is a long-time all-time favorite, and this amazingly expanded edition sounds astonishingly good to my ears -- worth every penny. Truly mind-blowing. Space IS deep.

My copy has Side A on LP1 and duplicated on LP2, taking the place of Side B. Label is for Side B.

The version shown here is a repress from '77 onwards determined by the small 'R' alongside the UA logo on the labels. Also label edge text only names United Artists (unlike first pressings that stated Liberty/United Artists Records).

For a 50 year old copy that was likely abused by some OG Eugene, Oregon stoners, mine's in great shape. This is the sound of astro-hippies leaving a decimated planet Earth behind. Or Fun House era Stooges with electronic boops n beeps if they drafted Lemmy on bass after Dave Alexander melted down.

This album sounds great. No pops. Very silent. Love it.

looking at the provided images, its a shame that the discs are packaged/inserted as they are. theres no way the discs wont get damaged being removed just to play them, let alone getting jostled around from handling in shipment. crap packaging just for that!!!

i will be buying one soon, though, as this is one of my all-time favorite records ever, and i need to have all the complete recordings of the 3 shows that were captured for this in the first place. i'll finally get to hear the Sunderland gig that makes it worth it right there.!!! cant wait!!

Bought new in 2016, excellent press! Clean flat and dead silent, sound quality is excellent this thing soars -high highs and low lows sounds very natural, S Magee did a wonderful job! The cover is heavy cardboard and folds out like the original, this is a great package!