Steve Hillage
Green

Equally divided between instrumental tracks (five) and vocal tracks (another five), "Green," released in 1978, is a rock album that avoids rehashing tired models and instead seeks to venture into new directions: from progressive towards space rock and ambient. A very technological sound, where freshness and originality become strengths of this music.

Steve Hillage holds the electric guitar as if it were a synthesizer. Just listen to "Ether Ships," the second track of the album: the introduction is entrusted to a sequencer, which then remains in the background for the entire duration of the track; then the guitar comes in with one of its airy solos; finally, the drums, marking the rhythmic coordinates of the track. A decidedly unusual modus operandi for a rock musician, who thus deliberately steps outside the conventional boundaries of the genre. The use of the voice itself is unconventional: in the sung tracks, it is used briefly at the beginning, then makes way for instrumental development and the overwhelming presence of Hillage's solos.

Also of great atmosphere is the work on keyboards and synths by Miquette Giraudy. Nick Mason of Pink Floyd is the producer of the album and plays drums on "Leylines in Glassdom". Tracks connected to each other, without silence separating them, as if to give the material a coherent sonic identity, making the work not so much a collection of songs as a uniquely varied articulation.

Thus flows the music of "Green," between science fiction allusions ("Unidentified Flying Being" and "U.F.O. Over Paris"; these titles would be remembered by the Orb about a dozen years later when they released their "U.F.Orb," an album that would see the participation of Hillage himself) and references to the world of nature ("Sea Nature," "Musick of the Trees"). Green is, in fact, the color of nature, and "Green," in its original edition, was released on green vinyl records, almost aiming to become a small sonic "manifesto" of the ecological and environmentalist sensitivity that was emerging in those years.