This page brings together psychedelic rock and space rock: the music that grew out of the mid-1960s and later drifted towards long jams, light shows and science fiction. The nine bands here come from England, Wales, Brazil, Sweden, Japan, Mexico and California, and they cover more than half a century of records.

The short version

Psychedelic rock took shape in the mid-1960s among British and American musicians, and it borrowed from the drug culture of the time, above all LSD. Its usual tools were studio effects, Eastern instruments and extended jams. The Texan band the 13th Floor Elevators was already putting the words “psychedelic rock” on its business cards in January 1966. Space rock grew out of psychedelia and early progressive rock in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is built on loose, lengthy structures and textures, with reverb-heavy guitars, synthesizers and lyrics about outer space and science fiction. Pink Floyd, Hawkwind and Gong are the names that define it, and all three have their own pages on this site.

From acid tests to outer space

British psychedelia leaned towards the whimsical and surreal, while the American West Coast developed a harsher “acid rock”. In London, Pink Floyd’s first album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (1967), already contained “Astronomy Domine” and the long improvised piece “Interstellar Overdrive”.

The same years produced one of the first rock operas. The Pretty Things, formed in Sidcup, Kent, in September 1963 by Phil May and Dick Taylor, left their rhythm and blues roots behind and recorded “S. F. Sorrow” at EMI’s Abbey Road studios with producer Norman Smith. It appeared in the UK in December 1968, months before The Who’s “Tommy”, and it follows one character, Sebastian F. Sorrow, through his life. Neil Strauss of The New York Times is among those who credit it as the first rock opera; members of The Who have denied that it influenced them.

Many British psychedelic musicians went on to create progressive rock in the 1970s, while Hawkwind, formed in Ladbroke Grove, London, in November 1969, kept an openly psychedelic course. Its 1973 double live album “Space Ritual”, which documented a 1972 tour with a light show and dancers, and spoken-word pieces by the science fiction writer Michael Moorcock, is described as a major work of the genre. In West Germany, the “kosmische” music of Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze took the cosmic idea into electronics, and across Europe Eloy, Nektar and the Hungarian band Omega followed their own routes into space.

A worldwide scene

Psychedelia travelled fast. In São Paulo, Os Mutantes formed as a trio in 1966: the brothers Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias Baptista, with singer Rita Lee. They were part of the Tropicália movement, which mixed Brazilian and African rhythms with psychedelic rock; in 1968 they backed Gilberto Gil on his album, appeared on the collective manifesto “Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis” and released their self-titled debut on Polydor. Rita Lee left in 1972 for a solo career, and the band moved towards progressive rock: “O A e o Z”, recorded in 1973, only came out in 1992.

In Tokyo, Flower Travellin’ Band began in 1967 as the Flowers, a covers group started by the producer and singer Yuya Uchida. Members of the Canadian band Lighthouse saw them at Expo ’70 and suggested they try Canada; they moved to Toronto in December 1970. Their first album of original material, “Satori”, came out in April 1971, with Joe Yamanaka on vocals and Hideki Ishima on guitar, and “Made in Japan” was recorded in Toronto. A reunited line-up released “We Are Here” in 2008. In Mexico, Los Dug Dug’s started as Xippos Rock, a rock and roll group of high school students in Durango, and took their new name from their home city and state, Durango, Durango. They worked in Tijuana and Mexico City and made four albums for RCA, from “Dug Dug’s” (1971) to “El loco”. AllMusic’s Jason Ankeny notes that singing in Spanish on “Smog” went against the habit of Mexican bands of the time, who mostly sang in English.

Back in Britain, two very different groups stretched the form. Man formed in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, in November 1968, out of the local band the Bystanders, and became known for long live improvisations; its style is usually described as a mix of psychedelia, space rock and progressive music. Arthur Brown, after his Crazy World of Arthur Brown fell apart in 1969, put together Kingdom Come, marketed in North America as Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come. It made three albums for Polydor between October 1971 and April 1973. The last, “Journey”, was recorded with no drummer at all: every drum sound came from a Bentley Rhythm Ace machine made by the Japanese company Ace Tone, which makes it one of the first rock records built on a drum machine.

The revival and after

Space rock came back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, alongside shoegaze, dream pop and early post-rock, with Spacemen 3, Spiritualized and Ozric Tentacles among the names. Ozric Tentacles came together at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983, first playing as Bolshem People, around guitarist Ed Wynne, who is still the band’s leader. After six self-released cassette albums, in 1989 they founded their own label, Dovetail, and issued “Pungent Effulgent”, their first vinyl record. Most of their music is wordless, and Wynne has said that words always get in the way.

The two youngest bands here carry the 1970s sound into this century. Dungen, from Stockholm, is essentially the project of Gustav Ejstes, who writes all the music, plays most of the instruments on the records and sings entirely in Swedish. Its 2004 album “Ta det lugnt” built the band’s international reputation. Astra formed in San Diego in 2001, first under the name Silver Sunshine; its two albums, “The Weirding” (2009) and “The Black Chord” (2012), are linked to 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock, with synthesizers, Mellotron and long jams.

I explain the term in more detail in my article What Is Space Rock?, and I look at where one genre ends and the other begins in Psychedelic Rock vs Progressive Rock: What Is the Difference?

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The bands in this guide

Nine bands from four continents. Each card opens the band’s page and its album guides.

Elsewhere on Prog Atlas

The founders of space rock live under other scenes on this site. Pink Floyd explored a cosmic sound from its first album onwards. Hawkwind is counted among the earliest space rock groups, and it shares history with this page: Man supported Hawkwind at a charity concert at the Roundhouse in February 1972, released as “Greasy Truckers Party”, and again on a five-week American tour in 1974. Hawkwind’s bassist on “In Search of Space”, Dave Anderson, had come from the German band Amon Düül II. Gong, formed in Paris in 1967 by Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, set out its space rock style on its 1971 album “Camembert Electrique”; Rolling Stone summed up the band as part English whimsy, part German kosmische space jams. Its synthesizer player Tim Blake later joined Hawkwind, and guitarist Steve Hillage joined Gong in January 1973 and became central to its sound. In Germany, Ash Ra Tempel belongs to the kosmische current, and Eloy and Nektar are part of the European space rock of the 1970s, as is the Hungarian band Omega with albums such as “Gammapolis”.

Where to start

I would start in London with “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (1967), the album with “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive”, and then “S. F. Sorrow” (1968), which AllMusic’s Bruce Eder praised for bridging British blues and British psychedelia. From Brazil, the debut “Os Mutantes” (1968) is the record that came out of the Tropicália year. From Japan, “Satori” (1971) topped Julian Cope’s list of Japanese rock albums in his book “Japrocksampler”, and AllMusic’s Thom Jurek called it “a real classic”. For a studio first of the early 1970s, try “Journey” (1973), the drum-machine album that Alan Holmes of Freq called “so far ahead of its time”. For the space rock side, “Journey to the Centre of the Eye” (1971) by Nektar is one of the European albums named in the genre’s history, and “Pungent Effulgent” (1989) is where the Ozric Tentacles revival reached vinyl. To finish in this century, “Ta det lugnt” (2004) earned 9.3 out of 10 from Pitchfork’s Brandon Stosuy.

Related scenes

The British founders of this music are in British Progressive Rock, and the kosmische branch is in German Progressive Rock & Krautrock. Gong and Steve Hillage sit in The Canterbury Scene. The louder, riff-driven side of the early 1970s continues in Heavy Prog, and the Indian instruments of the psychedelic years lead to Indo-Prog & Raga Rock.

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