>   FARFLUNG                            
< Relators of V            

farflungboys
> "Maybe I was smitten when I saw my first ever Hawkwind concert with Bob Calvert. To me that was the ultimate show. How could you beat something with that sort of energy. And I've always tried to accomplish that, at least with Farflung or Pressurehed."<
Tommy Grenas

> "Calvert was a frontiersman who knew that everything springs from that which is within, everything is growth and evolution and building on what is, and making it new. An expressionist who was able to realize a truly alternative musical form."<
Buck McGibbony
FAR FLUNG is:  
Tommy Grenas: lead voc. / keyboards
Michael Esther: guitars
Buck McGibbony: bass
Brandon La Belle: drums / percussion
Far Flung is another new band from L.A. - and another vital element in the (re-)growing branches of new electro-space-psych-rock.
And again, the influence of Calvert and Hawkwind are named as the most prominent by its members - and like Pressurehed, the band is closely connected to the fathers of space rock in real life as well....

Tommy Grenas (also a member of Pressurehed and Brandon La Belle both played with Nik Turner on his recent US-Tour.

Nik Turner - former / founder member of Hawkwind, long-time friend / collaborator of Calvert - like Hawkwind, still incorporates many Calvert songs and even some of his poetry in his sets.

But this collaboration takes up only a minor part of their time - the band, though relativley new, has already put out 2 singles, 2 CD's and contributed a track to the Pink Floyd tribute A Saucerful of Pink.

> LISTEN   to the title track of their debut album: 25 000 Feet per Second

well, the opening already reveals the band's main occupation: SPACE, Aliens, other/outer life forms....for them the term SPACE ROCK is obviously more than another trademark-label to get their records in the right shelves of the shops.

Their lyrics are constantly swirling around these subjects - and the music has the appropriate power of a rocket engine to lift the boys and the audience alike into space. A heavy rhythm base of which especially the chuncky bass-licks push forward the heavy, hovering synth/key layers, accompanied by cascading guitars....

Before I carry on - just
> Listen   to another track by Farflung:   The Way the Sky Is

Raven - cover The Way the Sky Is is a track taken from Far Flung's full-length CD release from 1996 - entitled:
The Raven that ate the Moon.
In short: a great album - the songs are permanently switching between heavy and powerful rock-sequences - pushed forward by huge riffs - and inventive, strange and atmospheric soundscapes.
The title track builds up slowly from a pure atmospheric soundscape over an ever-expanding, hypnotic rhythm into a full-blown space-rock-ish guitar track.
Expect the Unexpected, every second on this CD.

Far Flung's sounds could be described (if needed....) as experimental psychedelic - sonic spaces. There are the influences of early German electro avantgardos - like the earliest Tangerine Dream incarnation - along the traces of the heavier sides of Hawkwind - still its Far Flung's very own sound - taking all of it a good few steps further. And at its best moments (which are quite a few) the album develops a truly hypnotic / addictive effect.

faruniverse Apart from that, the album contains another Hawkwind reference to their bizarre instrumental track The Aubergine that ate Rangoon - and yet another one in the loose collaboration with Roger Neville-Neil - a former friend of Calvert, who wrote the lyrics for the album's title song and supplied the band with some conceptual background for it.
This track was inspired by a poem Roger wrote before he did the actual lyrics...which, strangely, can't be found on this album's sleeve, but on Far Flung's newest release So Many Minds, So Little Time - which, this time, includes the initial poem as well...


farsun Roger is quite experienced in the field of writing lyrics - as he did it already for a number of musicians and bands - including Hawkwind.
Read more on his collaborations with both Far Flung and Hawkwind - which both arose from ....surprise, surprise....his interest in Robert Calvert's lyrics.


LINKS - More on : Far Flung