Short Reviews [Alan Davey - 2020 - "Four Track Mind"]

Davey is going through a very busy period at present, as not content with his Hawkestrel project and re-releasing all the Pre-Med albums, here we find him curating a 4 CD set of demos he has recorded over the last 30+ years. Apparently this comes with a 12 age booklet with plenty of information on each of the songs, but I haven’t seen it as I only have the music, but that background information will be fascinating so one can compare what of these have then made it to an album. I spotted a few songs which later appeared with Hawkwind, such as “Sword of the East” which was on ‘The Xenon Codex’, but for archivists like me it would be good to know what appeared where so one can compare the versions and see how they changed. This is nearly five hours of material, much of it with no vocals, with Davey’s distinctive Lemmy-style bass and lots of Hawkwind-style keyboards at play. Some of the numbers feel almost complete and could have been popped onto a ‘wind album very easily, as although this is not exactly formulaic, they are mostly in a very similar style. Given they are demoes, it is little surprising that much of the drumming is undertaken by a machine, which is never going to find favour in my book, and there are times when the production isn’t all it could be, but these were designed as a sketchbook as it were, before the final touches and flourishes were provided by a full band. There is no doubt that Hawkwind/ Davey fans are going to be very interested in this but for the casual listener this is just a little too much to take in all at once. But for fans, if the booklet provides the information as to where these songs originated from and where they progressed to, then this will be essential.