Khan

Best known as the album that first brought the guitar playing talents of guitarist Steve Hillage to public prominence, Khan's sole album is a splendid example of a fusion of Canterbury flavoured rock combined with jazz and space-rock influences. Khan was a UK progressive rock band associated with the Canterbury scene. They were only active in 1971 and 1972 and released only one album, “Space Shanty”. “Space Shanty” was released in June 1972, followed by a UK live tour supporting Caravan. It’s a true classic progressive rock album of the Canterbury scene. It’s a question of love or hate to proggies. Some love its loose, jazzy jams, and others hate its hippie lyrics and flowery arrangements. Some others say that its sound has more to do with a hard rock album than to a Canterbury classic album.

But what’s notable is that “Space Shanty” is a distillation of the many styles of the Canterbury scene, with its cosmic hippy humour, the fascinating and busy arrangements but, above all, it remains completely new, fresh and exciting. This is a progressive rock album of the first class, and it’s, definitely, one of the best albums where Hillage and Stewart have played on.

Khan was a super group, one of the first ones. As is typical with the Canterbury scene, each member was also a member of a number of other bands. Keyboardist Dave Stewart played with Arzachel, Egg, Gong, Hatfield And The North, and National Health, to name a few. Guitarist Steve Hillage went on to play and record a number of notable albums with Kevin Ayers, Gong, and as a solo artist. Khan was the second band of Steve Hillage, he had actually played in a very early incarnation of Egg. Bassist Nick Greenwood had done time with the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.

Musically, “Space Shanty” is absolutely a superb classic early 70’s progressive rock of the first class. This is also one of the best albums that were released by what is today called the Canterbury scene, apparently an improbable place for so many and great prog bands. The bands that surfaced from that English provincial city produced some of the most consistently and interesting prog music released in the 70’s. Khan can be considered as one of the best examples, but we can add many others like Caravan, Gong, Soft Machine, Egg, Hatfield And The North, National Health and Quiet Sun.