In Search of Space - Sleeve

Sleeve

The band had started working with a wider range of artists, many of whom were contributing to the underground press. Graphic artist Barney Bubbles titled the album and designed the cover and with space-age poet Robert Calvert produced the accompanying 24 page The Hawkwind Log with photos by Phil Franks.

The front cover is a die-cut interlocking foldout. The back cover has a shot of a naked Stacia on stage under strobe lights and the phrase "TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEA̋D" which some people assert is a demonstration of the heavy metal umlaut. The inside panel features individual portraits of the band, however as Dik Mik had left the band his portrait was not taken, so on rejoining just before the album's release a hastily added image was included. Inside the foldout sleeve are various pictures of Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies playing together underneath the Westway in London.

There is no overall concept or theme to the songs on the album; the ideas that would culminate in the Space Ritual show are merely contained within the album package, principally the The Hawkwind Log. The The Hawkwind Log opens with:

The spacecraft Hawkwind was found by Captain RN Calvert of the Société Astronomæ (an international guild of creative artists dedicated in eternity to the discovery and demonstration of extra-terrestrial intelligence) on 8 July 1971 in the vicinity of Mare Librium near the South Pole. The discovery of the Hawkwind has led to more wild speculation than any of the mysteries of space that we have so far encountered. The facts surrounding the discovery of this drifting two-dimensional spaceship have been so distorted by guesswork and rumour that any further attempts at assessment would only increase the density of the fog.

Within, the journal entries are from various times and places, including a return to a burnt out Earth in November 1987. Themes explored include astrology and astronomy, ecology, science, occultism and mysticism, religion and philosophy. Some pieces would later be reused, such as the entries "0207 hrs 15 April 1572, Praesepe cluster" and "Countdown to Lift Off" which appeared on Space Ritual as "The Awakening" and "Ten Seconds of Forever" respectively, and Black Elk's "Offering of the Pipe" Hetchetu Aloh chant was later used on "Black Elk Speaks" from Space Bandits. One of the last entries, 1027 hrs. 5 May 1971, Ladbroke Grove, explains:

Space/time supply indicators near to zero. Our thoughts are losing depth, soon they will fold into each other, into flatness, into nothing but surface. Our ship will fold like a cardboard file and the noises of our minds compress into a disc of shining black, spinning in eternity...