News

Dear Hawkfan,

Welcome to the first of the Atomhenge newsletters. As you probably know, Atomhenge was established in August 2008 as the new home of HAWKWIND’s catalogue cover the period between 1976 and 1997 (from “Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music” to “Distant Horizon”).

Cherry Red Records group acquired the catalogue for the World at the beginning of August 2008 and the new label will be managed by the team behind Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings imprint. The emphasis on all Atomhenge releases will be on delivering newly remastered reissues of classic Hawkwind albums to the highest possible standards of audio quality and artwork packaging. It’s an exciting prospect to revisit albums that mean so much to many music fans, a prospect made even more enticing when there are many tape reels of unreleased material and alternate mixes that have never seen the light of day within the tape archives now part of Atomhenge.

To begin with, on the 23rd November Atomhenge releases two 3CD anthology sets, “Sprit of the Age”, (covering the period between 1976 and 1984), and “The Dream Goes On” (covering the period between 1985 and 1997). The first set features previously unreleased non-crossfaded mixes of tracks from the album “Hawklords 25 years On” and an extended version of “Steppenwolf” from “Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music”, together with un-released single edits and rare B-sides of single. The package is rounded off by a copiously illustrated book in each set with text written by Hawkwind biographer Ian Abrahams.

With the two anthologies as an introduction to Atomhenge, the New Year will see the reissue programme of individual albums begin. The end of January will see the release of an expanded deluxe 2CD edition of “Hawklords 25 Years On” with a 60 minute bonus CD featuring 10 previously unreleased versions of album tracks recorded at Langley Farm in Devon, including marvellous demos of “Flying Doctor”, “The Only Ones” and “Only the Dead Dreams of the Cold War Kid”, alongside early takes of “Freefall”, “25 Years”, “Age of the Micro Man” et al, along with a previously unreleased track, “Assassination”. It goes without saying that the original album will be remastered from the original first generation analogue master tapes. This is a “first” for this classic album as the previous Virgin CD release was mastered from a copy master tape.

Also as part of our January releases we will be reissuing “Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music” with the additional bonus tracks of the single version of “Kerb Crawler”, “Honky Dorky” and two previously unreleased alternate mixes of “Back on the Streets” and “The Dream of Isis”. Released for the first time outside of the USA will be the full version of “Live Chronicles”, newly remastered from the original tapes with an extensive CD booklet reproducing the tour programme for “Chronicle of the Black Sword”. Finally “Electric Tepee” finally appears on CD once more to complete the first batch of Atomhenge Hawkwind releases.

All of these releases can be obtained directly from the Atomhenge website or from any good retailer.

That’s all the news for now. Keep watching this space for further updates and release news as soon as we have it. We’re looking forward to a great series of reissues over the coming months!

Atomhenge Team

Hawkwind Tour
Following the release of Atomhenge's two new forthcoming anthologies on 24th November, Hawkwind will embark on a live UK Tour. You can see them at the following venues and dates throughout December 2008:

4th - Glasgow Academy
5th - Newcastle Academy
6th - Hard Rock Hell, Prestatyn
7th - The Point, Cardiff
8th - Exeter Univerity
10th - Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
11th - Rock City, Nottingham
12th - Manchester Academy
13th - Princess Pavillions, Falmouth
14th - Cheese & Grain, Frome
15th -The Brook, Southampton
16th - London Astoria