Rainbow Dome Musick

In 1978, Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy gathered together another line-up to tour, this time with drummer Andy Anderson and bassist John McKenzie, and Frenchman Christian Boule returning as second guitarist. A double-album, Live Herald, was released in early 1979, culling recordings of three different line-ups of the Steve Hillage Band. The album's fourth side, later known as Studio Herald, offered four new recordings. “Talking To The Sun” drives over a swift sequence, but it's the funky bass and tight drumming of the American rhythm section that give it a wholly modern feel. “1988 Aktivator” cops a “punk” feel, while “New Age Synthesis (Unzipping The Zype)” is one of the guitarist's finest compositions. Hillage's lead guitar soars on the slow-tempo “Healing Feeling”. The tracks, along with half of the previous Green album were released in America as Aura. Furthering the same direction, a complete studio album, open, appeared in September. Its highlights were the fusion of “The Fire Inside” and “Earthrise”, an adaptation of a piece by Oum Kalsoum. However, after the promotional tour for the record, Hillage would opt out of future solo work (even though all of his albums charted in the UK). But of all of their activities in the year, the most significant was Rainbow Dome Musick, an album of “ambient” music that he and Giraudy recorded for the Festival of Mind-Body-Spirit at London's Olympia exhibition center in April. In the 1980s, Hillage would lead a significant career as a Virgin house producer before he and Giraudy resurrected their recording careers as techno artist System 7 in the early '90s.